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KUnatrateli  CHabtnrt  Titian 

WHAT  SHALL  WE  DO  THEN? 

ON  THE  MOSCOW  CENSUS 

COLLECTED  ARTICLES 


By 


Count  Lev  N.  Tolstoy 


Translated  from  the  Original  Russian  and  edited  by 

Leo  Wiener 

Jlssutant  Professor  of  Slavic  Languages  at 
Harvard  University 


Boston 
Dana  Estes  &  Company 

Publishers 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGB 

Visiting    Their     Son.      Peasants    Come    to    Town 

(p.  71)  .         .         .         .         .         .         .  Frontispiece 

From  Painting  by  K.  Libedev. 
Amusements  of  the  Rich 196 

Photogravure  from  Drawing  by  Mencina. 
<'  Physical  Labour  " 300 

From  Painting  by  I.  E.  Byipin, 


Totatoy,  Yol.  XVII, 


The  Complete  Works  op 

COUNT   TOLSTOY 

Volume  XVII. 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  DO  THEN? 


And  the  people  asked  him,  saying,  What  shall  we  do 
then? 

He  answereth  and  saith  unto  them,  He  that  hath  two 
coats,  let  him  impaxt  to  him  that  hath  none ;  and  he  that 
hath  meat,  let  him  do  likewise  (Luke  iii.  10,  11). 

Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures  upon  earth,  where 
moth  and  rust  doth  corrupt,  and  where  thieves  break 
through  and  steal : 

But  lay  up  for  yourselves  treasures  in  heaven,  where 
neither  moth  nor  rust  doth  corrupt,  and  where  thieves  do 
not  break  through  nor  steal. 

For  where  your  treasure  is,  there  will  your  heart  be  also. 

The  light  of  the  body  is  the  eye  :  if  therefore  thine  eye 
be  single,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light. 

But  if  thine  eye  be  evil,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of 
darkness.  If  therefore  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness, 
how  great  is  that  darkness  ! 

No  man  can  serve  two  masters  :  for  either  he  will  hate 
the  one,  and  love  the  other  ;  or  else  he  will  hold  to  the  one, 
and  despise  the  other.    Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  mammon. 

Therefore  I  say  unto  you,  Take  no  thought  for  your  life, 
what  ye  shall  eat,  or  what  ye  shall  drink  ;  nor  yet  for  your 
body,  what  ye  shall  put  on.  Is  not  the  life  more  than 
meat,  and  the  body  than  raiment  ? 

Therefore  take  no  thought,  saying,  What  shall  we  eat  ? 
or,  What  shall  we  drink?  or,  Wherewithal  shall  we  be 
clothed  ?  ) 

(For  after  all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles  seek  :)  for  your 
heavenly  father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of  all  these 
things. 

But  seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  his  righteous- 
ness, and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you  (Matt, 
vi.  19-25,  31-33). 

It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle, 
than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
(Matt.  xix.  24  :  Luke  xviii.  26  ;  Mark  x.  26). 
3 


WHAT   SHALL   WE  DO   THEN? 


I  HAD  passed  all  my  life  in  the  country.  When,  in  the 
year  1881,  I  moved  to  Moscow,  I  was  struck  by  the  pov- 
erty of  the  city :  I  knew  what  the  poverty  of  the  village 
was,  but  that  of  the  city  was  new  and  incomprehensible 
to  me.  In  Moscow  it  is  impossible  to  walk  through  a 
street  without  meeting  mendicants,  of  a  particular  type, 
such  as  do  not  resemble  those  one  sees  in  the  country. 
These  beggars  are  not  mendicants  with  a  wallet  and  with 
Christ's  name,  such  as  village  beggars  are  imagined  to  be, 
but  beggars  vvithout  a  wallet  and  without  Christ's  name. 
The  beggars  of  Moscow  do  not  carry  a  wallet  and  beg  no 
alms.  As  a  rule,  when  they  meet  you  or  allow  you 
to  pass  them,  they  try  to  catch  your  eyes,  and  they  beg 
or  not,  according  to  your  glance. 

I  know  one  such  beggar  from  the  gentry.  The  old 
man  walks  slowly,  putting  his  weight  on  each  foot. 
When  he  meets  you,  he  puts  his  weight  on  one  foot  and 
acts  as  though  he  were  bowing  to  you.  If  you  stop,  he 
takes  hold  of  his  cockaded  cap,  bows  to  you,  and  begs  you 
for  an  alms ;  if  you  do  not  stop,  he  pretends  just  to  have 
such  a  gait,  and  passes  on,  bowing  with  a  leaning  on  his 
other  foot.  He  is  a  real,  trained  Moscow  beggar.  At 
first  I  did  not  know  why  the  Moscow  beggars  did  not  beg 
outright,  but  later  I  came  to  understand  it,  though  I  did 
not  understand  their  condition. 

One  day,  as  I  was  walking  through  Afandsev  Lane,  I 
saw  a  policeman  putting  a  tattered  peasant,  who  was 
pudgy  with  the  dropsy,  into  a  cab.  I  asked  him  why  he 
was  doing  this. 

The  policeman  answered  me :  "  For  begging  alms.** 

"  Is  that  forbidden  ? " 

"  I  guess  it  is,"  replied  the  policeman. 

The  dropsical  man  was  taken  away  in  the  cab.     I  took 


WHAT   SHALL    WE   DO    THEN?  5 

another  cab  and  followed  them.  I  wanted  to  find  out 
whether  it  was  true  that  it  was  prohibited  to  beg  alms, 
and  how  this  prohibition  was  carried  out.  I  could  not 
make  out  how  one  man  could  be  kept  from  asking  a  thing 
of  another,  and,  besides,  I  could  not  make  myself  believe 
that  there  could  be  a  law  against  begging,  since  Moscow 
was  full  of  beggars.  I  had  myself  driven  to  the  police 
station  whither  they  took  the  beggar.  In  the  station  a 
man  with  a  sword  and  a  pistol  was  sitting  at  a  table. 
I  asked  him : 

"  Why  was  this  peasant  arrested  ? " 

The  man  with  the  sword  and  the  pistol  looked  sternly 
at  me,  and  said : 

"  That  is  not  your  business." 

However,  as  he  felt  the  necessity  of  explaining  some- 
thing to  me,  he  added : 

"  The  authorities  order  such  people  to  be  arrested,  and 
so  it  is  right." 

I  went  away.  The  policeman  who  had  brought  the 
beggar  was  sitting  in  the  vestibule  on  a  window-sill,  and 
looking  gloomily  into  a  memorandum-book.  I  asked 
him : 

"Is  it  true  that  beggars  are  not  permitted  to  beg  in 
Christ's  name  ? " 

The  pohceman  was  startled.  He  looked  at  me,  then 
half  frowned,  half  fell  asleep  again,  and,  seating  himself 
back  on  the  window-sill,  said : 

"  The  authorities  order  it,  and  so  it  is  right,"  and  started 
to  busy  himself  once  more  with  his  book. 

I  went  out  on  the  porch  to  the  cabman. 

"Well,  how  is  it?  Did  they  take  him?"  asked  the 
cabman. 

The  cabman  was  evidently  interested  in  the  same 
thing. 

"  They  did,"  I  replied. 

The  driver  shook  his  head. 


b  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN? 


O 


"  How  is  this  ?  Do  they  not  allow  people  here  in  Mos- 
cow to  beg  in  the  name  of  Christ  ? "  I  asked. 

«  Who  can  make  them  out  ? "  said  the  driver. 

"  But  how  is  this  ? "  I  said.  "  A  beggar  is  Christ's,  and 
they  take  him  to  the  station." 

"They  have  stopped  it  all  in  these  days,  —  they  don't 
let  them." 

After  that  I  saw  policemen  on  several  occasions,  taking 
beggars  to  the  station  and  from  there  to  Yusiipov  Work- 
house. One  day  I  met  a  crowd  of  such  beggars,  about 
thirty  of  them,  in  Myasnitskaya  Street.  They  were 
preceded  and  followed  by  policemen.  I  asked  one  of 
them  why  they  were  taken  away. 

"  For  begging  alms." 

So  it  turns  out  that  according  to  the  law  alms  may  not 
be  asked  by  any  of  those  mendicants  of  whom  one  meets 
several  at  a  time  in  every  street,  and  rows  of  whom  stand 
in  front  of  the  churches  during  divine  service  and  espe- 
cially during  funerals. 

But  why  are  some  caught  and  locked  up  somewhere, 
while  others  are  let  alone  ?  That  I  was  unable  to  make 
out.  Or  are  there  among  them  lawful  and  unlawful  beg- 
gars ?  Or  are  there  so  many  of  them  that  it  is  impossible 
to  apprehend  all?  Or  do  they  take  some  away,  while 
others  take  their  place  ? 

In  Moscow  there  are  many  beggars  of  every  kind :  there 
are  some  who  make  a  living  in  this  manner ;  others  are 
real  beggars,  who  in  one  way  or  another  are  stranded  in 
Moscow,  and  really  suffer  want. 

Among  these  beggars  there  are  frequently  simple  peas- 
ants, men  and  women,  in  peasant  attire.  I  have  often 
come  across  such.  Some  of  these  fell  sick  and  came  out 
of  hospitals,  and  are  unable  to  provide  food  for  themselves, 
or  to  get  out  of  Moscow.  Others  again  have,  in  addition, 
been  on  sprees  (such,  no  doubt,  was  that  dropsical  man) ; 
others  were  not  convalescents,  but  men  who  had  lost  their 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  7 

property  in  fire,  or  old  men,  or  women  with  children; 
others  again  were  quite  well  and  able  to  work. 

These  well  peasants,  who  were  begging  alms,  interested 
me  more  particularly.  These  healthy,  able-bodied  beg- 
gars interested  me  also  for  the  reason  that  ever  since 
my  arrival  in  Moscow  I  had  made  it  my  habit  to  take  my 
exercise  by  going  out  to  the  Sparrow  Hills  and  working 
there  with  two  peasants  who  were  sawing  wood.  These 
two  peasants  were  just  such  beggars  as  those  whom  I  met 
in  the  streets.  One  of  them  was  Peter,  a  Kaluga  peas- 
ant, the  other  Semen,  from  the  Government  of  Vladimir. 
All  they  possessed  was  what  they  wore  on  their  backs, 
and  their  hands.  And  with  these  hands  they,  by  work- 
ing very  hard,  earned  from  forty  to  forty-five  kopeks  per 
day,  out  of  which  amount  they  saved  up  money :  the 
Kaluga  peasant,  —  to  buy  himself  a  fur  coat,  and  the 
Vladimir  peasant,  —  to  get  enough  money  with  which 
to  return  home.  For  this  reason  I  was  particularly 
interested  in  such  people,  when  I  met  them  in  the  streets. 

Why  do  those  work,  while  these  beg  ? 

Whenever  I  met  such  a  peasant,  I  generally  asked  him 
what  had  brought  him  into  such  a  plight.  One  day  I  met 
a  peasant  with  his  beard  streaked  gray  and  with  a  sound 
body.  He  was  begging.  I  asked  him  who  he  was  and 
whence  he  came.  He  said  that  he  had  come  from  Kaluga 
to  try  to  earn  something.  At  first  he  and  his  friend  had 
found  some  work  to  do,  —  cutting  up  old  lumber  for  fire- 
wood. They  had  finished  the  job,  and  had  been  looking 
for  more  work,  but  could  find  none.  In  the  meantime 
his  friend  had  strayed  from  him,  and  here  he  was  strug- 
gling the  second  week,  and  had  spent  everything,  and  did 
not  have  a  kopek  to  buy  a  saw  or  an  axe  with.  I  gave 
him  money  with  which  to  buy  a  saw,  and  told  him  where 
to  come  to  work.  I  had  already  left  word  with  Peter 
and  Sem^n  to  receive  him  and  find  a  partner  for  him. 
"  Be  sure  and  come !     There  is  lots  of  work  there." 


8  WHAT   SUALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

"  I  will,  of  course  I  will  come.  What  good,"  he  said, 
"  is  there  in  begging  ?     I  can  do  a  day's  work." 

The  peasant  swore  that  he  would  come,  and  I  thought 
that  he  was  not  deceiving  me,  but  fully  intended  to 
come. 

On  the  following  day  I  went  to  my  friends,  the  peas- 
ants, to  ask  them  whether  he  had  come.  No,  he  had  not. 
And  thus  a  number  of  men  deceived  me.  I  was  also 
deceived  by  such  as  wanted  money  just  for  a  ticket  with 
which  to  get  home,  but  whom  a  week  later  I  met  in  the 
street  again.  Many  of  these  I  came  to  know,  just  as  they 
knew  me ;  at  times  they  forgot  me  and  approached  me 
again  with  the  same  deception,  and  at  other  times  they 
went  away  the  moment  they  saw  me.  Thus  I  saw  that 
among  the  number  of  these  people  there  were  also  many 
cheats  ;  but  even  these  cheats  were  very  pitiful :  they  were 
all  half-naked,  poverty-stricken,  emaciated,  sickly  people ; 
they  were  of  that  class  who  really  freeze  to  death  and 
hang  themselves,  as  we  know  from  the  newspapers. 


IL 

Whenever  I  spoke  of  this  urban  wretchedness  to  city 
people,  I  was  always  told :  "  Oh  that  is  nothing !  You 
have  not  seen  everything :  you  must  go  to  Khitrov  Market 
and  to  the  doss-houses  thereabout.  There  you  will  see 
the  genuine  crack  company."  One  jester  told  me  that  it 
was  no  longer  a  company,  but  a  crack  regiment,  for  there 
were  so  many  of  them.  The  jester  was  right,  but  he 
would  have  been  still  more  in  the  right  if  he  had  said  that 
there  was,  not  a  company,  and  not  a  regiment,  but  a  whole 
army  of  them  in  Moscow :  I  think  there  are  fifty  thousand 
of  them.  Old  citizens,  in  speaking  to  me  of  the  urban 
wretchedness,  always  spoke  with  a  certain  degree  of  pleas- 
ure, as  though  they  were  proud  to  know  it.  I  remember, 
when  I  was  in  London,  the  natives  seemed  to  speak 
boastfully  of  the  London  poverty,  as  much  as  to  say: 
"  That's  the  way  we  do  things." 

I  wanted  to  see  the  wretchedness  of  which  I  was  told. 
I  started  several  times  to  go  to  Khitrov  Market,  but  I  felt 
every  time  uncomfortable  and  ashamed. 

"  Why  should  I  go  to  see  the  sufferings  of  men  whom  I 
am  unable  to  help  ?  "  one  voice  said. 

"  No,  if  you  live  here  and  see  all  the  joys  of  city  life, 
go  and  see  this  also,"  another  voice  said. 

And  so,  in  the  month  of  December  of  the  third  year,  on 
a  cold  and  stormy  day,  I  started  for  this  centre  of  city 
wretchedness,  for  Khitrov  Market.  It  was  a  week-day, 
about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  As  I  was  going  down 
the  Soly^nka,  I  began  to  notice  more  and  more  people  in 
strange   apparel,  evidently  not   their   own,  and  in  still 

9 


10  WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO   THEN? 

stranger  footgear,  —  people  with  an  unusually  sickly  com- 
plexion and,  above  all,  with  a  special  expression  of  indif- 
ference to  the  surroundings,  which  was  common  to  them 
all.  Though  wearing  the  strangest  kinds  of  garments,  of 
most  unseemly  patterns,  these  people  wa\ked  along  freely, 
evidently  devoid  of  all  thought  as  to  how  they  might 
strike  other  people.  All  these  were  walking  in  the  same 
direction. 

I  did  not  ask  for  the  road,  though  I  did  not  know  it, 
but  followed  them,  and  came  out  on  Khitrov  Market.  In 
the  market-place  just  such  women,  young  and  old,  in  tat- 
tered capes,  cloaks,  jackets,  boots,  and  overshoes,  acting 
with  just  as  little  constraint,  in  spite  of  the  monstrosity 
of  their  attire,  were  sitting  and  hawking  something,  or 
walking  about  and  cursing.  There  were  few  people  in 
the  market-place.  Apparently  it  was  past  market-time, 
and  the  majority  of  people  were  going  up-hill,  past  the 
market  and  across  it,  aU  of  them  in  the  same  direction. 
I  followed  them.  The  farther  I  went,  the  greater  was 
the  throng  of  people  walking  in  the  same  direction. 
After  I  had  passed  the  market  I  walked  up  the  street, 
falling  in  with  two  women,  one  of  them  old,  the  other 
young.  Both  wore  torn  gray  clothes.  They  were  walking 
and  talking  about  something. 

After  every  necessary  word  they  uttered  one  or  two 
unnecessary,  extremely  improper  words.  They  were  not 
drunk,  but  were  agitated  by  something;  the  men  who 
were  walking  toward  them,  and  preceding  or  following 
them,  did  not  pay  the  slightest  attention  to  their  strange 
expressions.  In  these  places  evidently  all  people  spoke 
in  the  same  way. 

On  the  left  were  private  lodging-houses,  and  a  few 
stopped  here,  while  others  walked  on.  After  ascending 
tUe  hill,  we  came  to  a  large  corner  house.  The  majority 
of  those  who  were  walking  with  me  stopped  at  this  house. 
On  the  whole  sidewalk  in  front  of  this  house  just  such 


WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  11 


people  walked  about  or  sat  down  on  the  walk  or  in  the 
snow  of  the  street.  On  the  right  hand  of  the  entrance 
door  were  women,  and  on  the  left  —  men.  I  walked  past 
the  women,  and  then  past  the  men  (there  were  several 
hundreds  of  them),  and  stopped  where  their  file  came  to  an 
end.  The  house,  in  front  of  which  these  people  were 
stopping,  was  the  free  Lyapinski  lodging-house.  The 
crowd  of  people  were  waiting  to  be  admitted  for  a  night's 
lodging.  The  doors  are  opened  at  five  o'clock,  when  the 
people  are  admitted.  It  was  to  this  place  that  the  major- 
ity of  people  past  whom  I  had  walked  were  trying  to 
get. 

I  stopped  where  the  file  of  men  came  to  an  end.  The 
people  nearest  to  me  began  to  look  at  me  and  attracted 
me  with  their  glances.  The  remnants  of  the  garments 
that  covered  their  bodies  were  quite  varied;  but  the 
expression  of  all  the  glances  that  these  people  directed  at 
me  was  absolutely  the  same.  In  all  their  glances  one 
could  read  the  question,  "  Why  did  you,  a  man  from 
another  world,  stop  here  by  the  side  of  us  ?  Who  are 
you?  Are  you  a  self-satisfied  rich  man,  who  is  trying 
to  take  delight  out  of  our  misery,  to  distract  yourself  in 
your  ennui,  and  to  torture  us  ?  Or  are  you  —  what  does 
not  happen  and  cannot  be  —  a  man  who  pities  us  ? " 

This  question  was  on  all  the  faces.  A  man  would 
glance  at  me,  meet  my  glance,  and  turn  away  again.  I 
felt  like  starting  up  a  conversation  with  some  one,  but  for 
a  long  time  I  could  not  make  up  my  mind  to  do  so.  But 
while  we  were  silent,  our  glances  were  bringing  us  closer 
together.  No  matter  how  much  life  separated  us,  we  felt 
after  the  exchange  of  two  or  three  glances  that  we  were 
all  men,  and  we  ceased  fearing  one  another.  Nearest  to 
me  stood  a  peasant  with  a  swollen  face  and  a  red  beard, 
in  a  torn  caftan  and  overshoes  worn  down  to  the  skin.  It 
was  eight  degrees  Eeaumur  below  zero.  Our  eyes  met 
for  the  third  or  fourth  time,  and  I  felt  myself  so  close  to 


12  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

him  that,  far  from  feeling  astamed  to  speak  with  him,  T 
felt  that  I  should  be  ashamed  if  I  did  not  strike  up  a 
conversation  with  him. 

I  asked  him  where  he  came  from.  He  answered  cheer- 
fully, and  began  to  talk ;  others  came  up  to  us.  He  was 
from  Smolensk,  and  had  come  to  find  work  with  which  to 
earn  money  for  grain  and  for  the  taxes. 

"  You  cannot  find  any  work,"  he  said,  "  for  the  soldiers 
nowadays  get  all  the  work  away  from  us.  And  so  I  am 
wandering  about.  I  swear  by  God  I  have  not  had  any- 
thing to  eat  for  two  days." 

This  he  said  timidly,  with  an  attempt  at  a  smile.  A 
sbiten  ^  peddler,  an  old  soldier,  was  standing  near  by.  I 
called  him  up.  He  filled  up  a  glass  of  sbiten.  The  peas- 
ant took  the  hot  glass  into  his  hands  and,  before  drinking 
it,  warmed  his  hands  over  it,  trying  not  to  waste  any  of 
the  heat.  While  he  was  warming  his  hands  he  told  me 
liis  adventure.  The  adventures,  or  the  stories  of  the 
adventures,  are  nearly  always  the  same :  he  had  a  small 
job,  but  it  stopped,  and  his  purse  with  his  money  and  his 
ticket  were  stolen  in  a  lodging-house.  Now  he  was  un- 
able to  get  away  from  Moscow.  He  told  me  that  in  the 
daytime  he  warmed  himseK  in  taverns  and  fed  on  free 
lunches  (bits  of  bread  in  the  taverns) ;  at  times  they  let 
him  have  a  piece,  and  at  times  they  drove  him  out ;  he 
passed  his  nights  in  the  free  Ly^pinski  House.  He  was 
waiting  for  the  police  raid  which  would  take  him  to  jail, 
as  he  had  no  passport,  and  would  send  him  by  ^tappe 
back  to  his  place  of  residence.  "  They  say  the  raid  will 
happen  on  Thursday."  (The  jail  and  the  ^tappe  presented 
themselves  to  him  as  a  promised  land.) 

While  he  was  telling  me  this,  two  or  three  men  from 
among  the  crowd  confirmed  his  words,  saying  that  they 
were  in  precisely  the  same  condition.     A  lean,  pale,  long- 

1  A  drink  composed  of  water,  honey,  and  laurel  leaves,  or  sage, 
used  by  the  masses  in  the  place  of  tea. 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  IS 

nosed  young  man,  with  nothing  but  a  shirt  over  the  upper 
part  of  his  body,  with  holes  above  his  shoulders,  and  in  a 
visorless  cap,  pushed  his  way  toward  me  sidewise  through 
the  crowd.  He  was  trembling  all  the  time  with  a  violent 
chill,  but  tried  to  smile  contemptuously  at  the  remarks  of 
the  peasants,  hoping  thus  to  fall  in  with  my  tone,  and 
kept  looking  at  me.  I  offered  him  also  a  glass  of  sbiten. 
He,  too,  took  the  glass  and  warmed  himself  over  it,  and 
just  as  he  began  to  talk  he  was  pushed  aside  by  a  tall, 
swarthy,  hook-nosed  man,  in  a  chintz  shirt  and  a  vest,  and 
without  a  hat. 

The  hook-nosed  fellow,  too,  asked  me  for  some  sbiten. 
Then  came  a  long-legged  old  man  with  a  wedge-shaped 
beard,  wearing  an  overcoat  with  a  rope  girdle  and  bast 
shoes,  —  he  was  drunk ;  then  a  little  fellow  with  a 
swollen  face  and  tearful  eyes,  who  wore  a  brown  nankeen 
frock  coat,  and  whose  bare  knees  could  be  seen  through 
the  holes  of  his  summer  pantaloons,  striking  one  against 
the  other  from  the  cold.  He  could  not  hold  the  glass 
because  of  his  chill,  and  spilled  its  contents  over  himself. 
They  began  to  scold  him.  He  only  smiled  pitifully  and 
trembled. 

Then  there  came  a  crooked  cripple  with  rags  on  his 
body  and  on  his  bare  feet,  then  something  that  resembled 
an  officer,  and  something  that  resembled  a  clergyman, 
then  something  strange  and  noseless,  —  all  that  cold 
and  hungry,  imploring  and  humble  mass  crowded  about 
me  and  made  for  the  sbiten.  They  all  drank  the  sbiten. 
One  of  them  asked  for  some  money,  and  I  gave  it  to  him. 
A  second,  a  third,  asked  for  money,  and  I  was  besieged  by 
the  crowd.  The  janitor  of  a  neighbouring  house  shouted 
to  the  crowd  to  clear  the  sidewalk  in  front  of  his  house, 
and  the  people  submissively  executed  his  command. 
Some  men  in  the  crowd  took  the  matter  in  hand,  and 
offered  me  their  protection :  they  wanted  to  take  me  out 
of   the   crush,  but  the   crowd,  which  before   had   been 


14  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

stretched  out  along  the  sidewalk,  was  now  in  commotion, 
pressing  close  to  me.  They  all  looked  at  me,  and  begged 
me  for  something ;  and  one  face  was  more  pitiful,  more 
emaciated,  and  more  humbled  than  another.  I  gave  them 
everything  I  had.  I  did  not  have  much  money  with  me, 
—  something  hke  twenty  roubles,  —  and  I  entered  the 
lodging-house  with  the  crowd. 

The  lodging-house  is  enormous.  It  consists  of  four 
divisions.  In  the  upper  stories  are  the  apartments  for 
men,  and  in  the  lower  those  for  women.  At  first  I 
entered  the  female  division :  a  large  room  is  here  taken 
up  by  bunks,  resembhng  those  of  third-class  railway-cars. 
The  bunks  are  arranged  in  two  tiers.  Strange,  ragged 
women,  both  old  and  young,  with  nothing  but  the  clothes 
they  had  on,  kept  coming  in  and  occupying  their  places, 
some  below,  and  others  above.  Some  of  them,  the  older 
ones,  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  and  prayed  for  him 
who  had  founded  this  asylum,  while  others  laughed  and 
cursed. 

I  went  up-stairs.  There  the  men  took  up  their  bunks ; 
among  them  I  saw  one  of  those  to  whom  I  had  given 
money.  When  I  saw  him,  I  suddenly  felt  dreadfully 
ashamed,  and  I  hurried  to  get  out.  I  left  this  house  with 
the  sensation  of  having  committed  a  crime,  and  went 
home.  At  home  I  walked  over  the  carpet  of  the  stair- 
case into  an  antechamber,  the  floor  of  which  was  covered 
with  cloth,  and,  having  taken  off  my  fur  coat,  I  sat  down 
at  a  five-course  dinner,  which  was  served  by  two  lackeys 
in  dress  coats,  white  ties,  and  white  gloves. 

Thirty  years  ago  I  saw  in  Paris  a  man  decapitated  by  a 
guillotine  in  the  presence  of  a  thousand  spectators.  I 
knew  that  this  man  was  a  terrible  criminal ;  I  knew  all 
those  reflections  which  men  had  been  writing  for  so  many 
centuries,  in  order  to  justify  such  acts ;  I  knew  that  it 
was  being  done  intentionally,  conscientiously ;  but  at  the 
moment  when  the  head  and  the  body  separated  and  fell 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  15 

into  the  box,  I  groaned,  and  I  understood,  not  with  my 
mind,  not  with  my  heart,  but  with  my  whole  being,  that 
all  the  reflections  which  I  had  heard  about  capital  punish- 
ment were  a  horrible  blunder ;  that,  no  matter  how  many 
people  might  come  together  in  order  to  commit  murder,  — 
the  worst  crime  on  earth,  —  and  no  matter  how  they 
might  call  themselves,  murder  was  murder,  and  that  this 
sin  had  been  committed  in  my  sight.  By  my  presence 
and  non-interference  I  approved  of  this  sin,  and  took  part 
in  it. 

Even  so  now,  at  the  sight  of  this  starvation,  cold,  and 
humiliation  of  thousands  of  men,  I  understood,  not  with 
my  reason,  nor  with  my  heart,  but  with  my  whole  being, 
that  the  existence  of  tens  of  thousands  of  such  men  in 
Moscow,  while  I  with  other  thousands  gorge  myself  on 
fillet  and  sturgeon,  and  cover  the  floors  and  the  horses 
with  stufi's  and  carpets,  —  no  matter  what  all  the  wise 
men  of  the  world  may  tell  me  about  its  being  necessary, 
—  is  a  crime,  which  is  not  committed  once,  but  is  being 
committed  all  the  time,  and  that  I,  with  my  luxury,  not 
only  incite  to  it,  but  also  take  part  in  it.  For  me  the 
difference  of  these  two  impressions  consisted  in  this,  that 
there  all  I  could  have  done  was  to  have  called  out  to  the 
murderers  who  were  standing  near  the  guillotine  and 
attending  to  the  murder,  that  they  were  doing  wrong, 
and  to  have  tried  in  every  way  to  interfere  with  them; 
but  in  doing  so,  I  might  have  known  that  that  act  of 
mine  would  not  have  prevented  the  murder.  But  here  I 
not  6nly  was  able  to  give  the  sbiten  and  all  the  miserable 
httle  sum  which  I  had  with  me,  but  might  have  given 
away  my  overcoat  and  everything  which  I  had  at  home. 
I  did  not  do  so,  and  so  I  felt,  and  feel  even  now,  and 
shall  never  stop  feeling,  that  I  am  a  participant  in  a 
crime  which  is  taking  place  all  the  time,  so  long  as  I 
have  superfluous  food,  and  another  man  has  none,  and 
I  have  two  garments,  when  another  has  not  even  one. 


m. 

That  very  evening,  upon  my  return  from  Ly^pinski 
House,  I  told  my  impressions  to  a  friend  of  mine. 
My  friend— -a  denizen  of  Moscow  —  began  to  tell  me, 
not  without  pleasure,  that  this  is  a  very  natural  urban 
phenomenon ;  that  it  was  only  my  provincialism  which 
made  me  see  something  peculiar  in  it ;  that  it  had  been 
so  all  the  time  and  would  always  be  so,  and  that  it  was 
an  inevitable  condition  of  civilization.  In  London  it 
was  worse  still,  —  consequently  there  was  nothing  bad 
in  this,  and  there  was  no  reason  for  being  dissatisfied 
with  it. 

I  began  to  retort  to  my  friend,  but  did  this  with  so 
much  excitement  and  vim  that  my  wife  came  running  in 
from  the  other  room,  to  ask  what  had  happened.  It  was 
discovered  that,  without  knowing  it  myself,  I  had  been 
shouting  with  tears  in  my  voice  and  waving  my  arms  in 
my  friend's  face.  I  yelled,  "  It  is  impossible,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  hve  in  such  a  way,  impossible  ! "  I  was  put  to 
shame  for  my  excessive  excitement,  and  I  was  told  that 
I  could  not  speak  calmly  about  anything  and  that  I 
became  unpleasantly  irritated,  and,  above  all  else,  it  was 
proved  to  me  that  the  existence  of  such  unfortunates 
could  by  no  means  be  a  cause  for  poisoning  the  life  of 
one's  family. 

I  felt  that  that  was  quite  true,  and  I  grew  silent ;  but 
in  the  depth  of  my  soul  I  felt  that  I  was  right,  and  I 
could  not  calm  myself. 

The  city  life,  which  had  been  strange  and  alien  to  me 
before,  now  disgusted  me  so  much  that  all  those  joys  of  a 

16 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  17 

luxurious  life,  which  heretofore  had  appeared  as  joys  to 
me,  now  became  a  torment  for  me.  No  matter  how 
much  I  tried  to  find  in  my  soul  some  kind  of  a  justifica- 
tion of  our  life,  I  could  not  without  irritation  look  either 
at  my  own  drawing-room  or  at  that  of  another  person, 
nor  at  a  cleanly,  elegantly  set  table,  nor  at  a  carriage,  nor 
at  a  fat  coachman  and  his  horses,  nor  at  shops,  theatres, 
or  assembhes.  I  could  not  help  but  see  side  by  side  with 
them  the  cold,  hungry,  and  humiliated  inmates  of  Lya- 
pinski  House.  I  could  not  rid  myself  of  the  idea  that 
these  two  things  were  connected  and  that  one  grew  out 
of  the  other.  I  remember  how  the  feeliag  of  guilt  re- 
mained in  me  the  same  it  had  appeared  in  the  first 
moment ;  but  very  soon  another  sentiment  mingled  with 
this  and  overshadowed  it. 

When  I  spoke  of  my  impression  of  Lyapinski  House  to 
my  near  friends  and  acquaintances,  all  gave  me  the  same 
answer  that  was  given  me  by  my  first  friend,  to  whom  I 
had  been  yelhng  so,  but  they,  in  addition  to  that,  ex- 
pressed their  approval  of  my  goodness  and  sensitiveness, 
and  gave  me  to  understand  that  this  spectacle  acted  upon 
me  thus  only  because  I,  Lev  Nikolaevich,  was  good  and 
kind.  I  believed -them  readily.  Before  I  had  a  chance 
to  look  around,  the  feeling  of  resentment  and  repentance, 
which  I  had  experienced  at  first,  gave  way  in  me  to  a 
feeling  of  satisfaction  with  my  virtue,  and  a  desire  to 
express  it  to  other  people. 

"No  doubt,"  I  said  to  myself,  "it  is  not  I  who  am 
guilty  here  with  my  luxurious  Hfe,  but  the  necessary 
conditions  of  life.  The  change  of  my  life  could  certainly 
not  change  the  evil  which  I  saw.  By  changing  my  hfe 
I  should  only  make  myself  and  my  family  unhappy, 
while  those  misfortunes  will  remain  what  they  are. 

"  Consequently,  my  task  does  not  consist  in  changing 
my  life,  as  I  had  thought  at  first,  but  in  contributing,  as 
much  as  it  lies  in  my  power,  to  the  improvement  of  the 


18  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

condition  of  those  unfortunates  who  have  called  forth  my 
compassion.  The  whole  matter  is  that  I  am  a  very  good 
and  kindly  man  and  wish  to  do  my  neighbours  some 
good." 

And  so  I  began  to  consider  a  plan  of  philanthropic 
activity  in  which  I  should  have  a  chance  to  give  expres- 
sion to  my  virtue.  I  must,  however,  say  that,  while 
reflecting  on  this  philanthropic  activity,  I,  in  the  depth 
of  my  soul,  felt  that  it  was  not  the  right  thing,  but,  as 
frequently  happens,  the  activity  of  my  mind  and  of  my 
imagination  drowned  in  me  this  voice  of  my  conscience. 

Just  then  they  were  taking  the  census.  This  seemed 
to  me  to  be  a  chance  for  the  exercise  of  that  philanthropy 
in  which  I  wanted  to  express  my  virtue.  I  knew  of 
many  charitable  institutions  and  societies  that  existed  in 
Moscow,  but  their  activity  seemed  to  me  to  be  falsely 
directed  and  insignificant  in  comparison  with  what  I 
wanted  to  do.  And  so  I  hit  on  the  following  jj  I  would 
call  forth  in  the  rich  a  sympathy  for  the  city's  wretched- 
ness ;  would  collect  money  and  bring  together  men  who 
would  be  willing  to  cooperate  in  this  matter ;  would  visit 
with  the  census-takers  all  the  purlieus  of  poverty  and, 
besides  the  work  of  taking  the  census;  would  enter  into 
communion  with  the  unfortunates ;  would  find  out  the 
details  of  their  needs  and  aid  them  with  money,  with 
work,  with  sending  them  out  of  Moscow  and  locating  the 
children  in  schools  and  the  old  people  in  homes  and  poor- 
houses.  More  than  this :  I  thought  that  out  of  those 
people  who  would  busy  themselves  with  this  there  would 
be  formed  a  permanent  organization,  which,  dividing  up 
among  themselves  the  wards  of  Moscow,  would  see  to 
it  that  the  poverty  and  misery  should  not  become  infec- 
tious; would  always  destroy  the  infection,  at  its  incep- 
tion ;  would  attend  not  so  much  to  the  duty  of  curing  as 
to  the  hygiene  of  the  urban  poverty.  I  imagined  that, 
not  to  speak  of  the  mendicants,  there  would  not  be  any 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  19 

merely  needy  people  in  the  city  ;  and  that  it  would  be  I 
who  would  do  all  this;  and  that  we,  the  rich  people, 
would  after  that  sit  quietly  in  our  drawing-rooms,  and 
eat  five-course  dinners,  and  travel  in  carriages  to  theatres 
and  assemblies,  no  longer  troubled  by  such  sights  as  I 
had  seen  near  Lyapinski  House. 

Having  formed  this  plan,  I  wrote  an  article  about  it, 
and,  before  sending  it  to  be  printed,  called  on  acquaint- 
ances whose  cooperation  I  hoped  to  get.  To  all  whom  I 
saw  during  that  day  (I  turned  mainly  to  the  rich)  I  re- 
peated the  same  words,  almost  what  I  had  written  in  the 
article :  I  proposed  to  make  use  of.  the  census  for  the  pur- 
pose of  discovering  all  about  the  poverty  in  Moscow,  and 
helping  it  with  works  and  with  money,  and  seeing  to  it 
that  there  should  be  no  poor  in  Moscow,  so  that  we,  the 
rich  people,  might  with  a  calm  conscience  enjoy  the  bene- 
fits of  life  to  which  we  were  accustomed.  All  listened  to 
me  attentively  and  seriously,  but  precisely  the  same  thing 
took  place  with  every  one  of  them.  The  moment  my 
hearers  understood  what  it  was  all  about,  they  seemed  to 
feel  uncomfortable  and  a  little  conscience-stricken.  They 
felt  embarrassed,  mainly  for  my  sake,  because  I  was  talk- 
ing such  foohsh  things,  and  yet  such  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  say  outright  that  they  were  foolish.  It  was  as 
though  some  external  cause  compelled  the  hearers  to  nod 
consent  to  this  my  foolishness. 

"  Oh,  yes !  Of  course.  It  would  be  so  nice,"  they 
said  to  me.  "  It  goes  without  saying  that  we  must  sym- 
pathize with  that.  I  thought  so  myself,  but  our  people 
are  in  general  so  indifferent  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  to 
count  on  much  success  —  However,  I  on  my  part  am, 
of  course,  prepared  to  cooperate." 

All  told  me  very  nearly  the  same.  All  consented,  but 
they  did  so,  as  I  thought,  not  in  consequence  of  my  con- 
viction and  not  in  consequence  of  their  own  desire,  but  in 
consequence  of  some  external  cause  which  made  it  impos- 


20  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

sible  for  them  not  to  agree.  This  I  noticed  from  the  fact 
that  not  one  of  those  who  offered  me  their  cooperation  by- 
contributing  money  himself  defined  the  sum  which  he 
intended  to  give,  so  that  I  was  compelled  to  determine  it 
by  asking,  "  So  I  may  count  on  you  to  the  extent  of  300, 
or  200,  or  100,  or  125  roubles?"  and  not  one  of  them 
gave  the  money.  I  mention  this,  because  when  people 
contribute  money  for  something  they  sympathize  with, 
they  are  generally  in  a  hurry  to  give  the  money.  For 
a  box  at  Sarah  Bernhardt's  performance  people  pay  out 
the  money  at  once,  in  order  to  secure  the  matter ;  but  here, 
not  one  of  all  those  who  agreed  to  contribute,  and  who 
expressed  their  sympathy,  offered  to  pay  the  money  at 
once;  they  only  acquiesced  in  the  sum  which  I  de- 
termined for  them. 

In  the  last  house  in  which  I  happened  to  be  on  that 
evening,  I  accidentally  met  a  large  company.  The  hostess 
of  this  house  had  for  some  years  been  busying  herself  with 
philanthropy.  At  the  entrance  stood  several  carnages, 
and  in  the  antechamber  sat  a  number  of  lackeys  in  costly 
liveries.  In  the  large  drawing-room  married  and  unmar- 
ried ladies,  wearing  expensive  garments,  were  seated  at 
twp  tables  with  lamps,  dressing  small  dolls,  and  near 
them  were  also  a  few  young  men.  The  dolls  which 
were  being  fixed  up  by  these  ladies  were  to  be  raffled  off 
for  the  benefit  of  the  poor. 

The  sight  of  this  drawing-room  and  of  the  men  who 
were  gathered  in  it  struck  me  very  disagreeably.  Not  to 
mention  the  fact  that  the  fortunes  of  the  people  gathered 
there  were  equal  to  several  millions ;  that  the  mere  inter- 
est of  the  capital  which  was  expended  here  on  garments, 
lace,  bronzes,  brooches,  carriages,  horses,  liveries,  lackeys, 
would  be  a  hundred  times  greater  than  what  these  ladies 
were  manufacturing  here,  —  not  to  mention  aU  that,  the 
expenses  incurred  by  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  coming 
out  here,  —  their  gloves,  their  linen,  their  travelling,  the 


I 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN  ?  21 

candles,  tea,  sugar,  and  cake  furnished  by  the  hostess 
amounted  to  a  hundred  times  the  sum  they  would  reahze 
from  their  work.  I  saw  all  this,  and  so  I  ought  to  have 
known  that  there  I  should  not  find  any  sympathy  for  the 
business  which  brought  me  there ;  but  I  had  come  to 
make  my  proposition,  and,  no  matter  how  hard  this  was 
for  me,  I  told  them  what  I  wanted  (I  repeated  almost 
word  for  word  what  I  had  written  in  my  article). 

One  of  the  ladies  present  offered  me  money,  saying  that 
she  did  not  feel  strong  enough  on  account  of  her  nerves  to 
visit  the  poor,  but  that  she  would  give  money  ;  how  much 
she  would  give,  and  when  she  would  furnish  it,  she  did 
not  say.  Another  lady  and  a  young  man  offered  their 
services  in  making  the  round  of  the  poor ;  but  I  did  not 
avail  myself  of  their  offer.  The  chief  person  to  whom  I 
addressed  myself  told  me  that  it  would  not  be  possible  to 
do  much,  because  the  means  were  insignificant.  The  means 
were  not  sufficient  because  all  the  rich  people  of  Moscow 
were  already  booked  for  other  charities,  and  everything 
that  possibly  could  be  obtained  from  them  had  been 
extorted  from  them ;  that  all  these  philanthropists  had 
already  received  their  ranks,  medals,  and  other  honours ; 
that  in  order  to  secure  a  financial  success  it  would  be 
necessary  to  obtain  the  grant  of  new  honours  from  the 
authorities,  and  that  this  was  the  one  effective  means,  but 
that  it  was  hard  to  obtain  it. 

When  I  returned  home  that  night,  I  lay  down  to  sleep, 
not  only  with  the  presentiment  that  nothing  would  come 
of  my  idea,  but  also  with  shame  and  with  the  conscious- 
ness that  I  had  done  something  very  contemptible  and 
disgraceful  on  that  whole  day.  But  I  did  not  throw  up 
the  matter.  In  the  first  place,  the  matter  had  been  set 
a-going,  and  a  false  shame  kept  me  from  giving  it  up  ;  in 
the  second  place,  not  only  the  success  of  this  matter,  but 
my  every  occupation  with  it,  made  it  possible  for  me  to 
continue  life  in  those  conditions  in  which  I  was  living. 


22  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

while  its  failure  subjected  me  to  the  necessity  of  renounc- 
ing my  life  and  of  seeking  new  paths  of  hfe.  Of  this  I 
was  unconsciously  afraid.  I  did  not  believe  my  inner 
voice,  and  continued  what  I  had  begun. 

I  sent  my  article  ^  to  the  printer,  and  read  it  in  proof 
to  the  City  Council.  As  I  read  it,  I  blushed  to  tears  and 
faltered  in  speech,  for  I  felt  so  uncomfortable.  Appar- 
ently all  my  hearers  felt  as  uncomfortable  as  I.  In  reply 
to  my  question,  which  I  put  at  the  end  of  my  reading, 
whether  the  managers  of  the  census  accepted  my  propo- 
sition, which  was  that  they  should  stay  in  their  places  in 
order  that  they  might  be  mediators  between  society  and 
the  needy,  there  ensued  an  awkward  silence.  Then  two 
orators  delivered  speeches.  These  seemed  to  mend  the 
awkwardness  of  my  proposition :  they  expressed  sympa- 
thy for  me,  but  pointed  out  the  inapplicability  of  my 
idea,  which  was  approved  by  all  of  them.  They  felt  a 
relief. 

But  when  I  later  none  the  less  -tried  to  gain  my  point, 
and  asked  the  managers  privately  whether  they  consented 
at  the  census  to  investigate  the  needs  of  the  poor,  and  to 
remain  in  their  posts  for  the  purpose  of  serving  as  media- 
tors between  the  poor  and  the  rich,  they  again  felt  ill  at 
ease.  They  seemed  to  be  saying  to  me  with  their  glances : 
"  Here  we  haye^  out  of  respect  for  you,  whitewashed  your 
stupid V break,  and  you  annoy  us  once  more  with  it."  Such 
was  the  expression  of  their  faces,  but  in  words  they  told 
me  that  they  agreed  with  me ;  two  of  them,  each  one 
separately,  as  though  having  plotted  together,  told  me  in 
the  same  words :  "  We  consider  ourselves  morally  obliged 
to  do  so." 

The  same  impression  was  produced  by  my  communica- 
tion on  the  student  census-takers,  when  I  told  them  that 
in  taking  the  census  we  should  not  only  pursue  the  aims 
of  the  census  itself,  but  also  those  of  philanthropy.  I 
1 "  On  the  Census  in  Moscow,"  given  in  this  present  volume. 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  23 

noticed  that,  while  I  was  speaking  to  them  of  it,  they 
looked  with  embarrassment  into  my  eyes,  just  as  one  is 
embarrassed  to  look  into  the  eyes  of  a  good  man  who 
is  talking  some  nonsense.  The  same  effect  was  produced 
on  the  editor  of  the  newspaper,  by  my  article,  when  I 
handed  it  to  him,  and  on  my  son,  on  my  wife,  and  on 
people  of  every  description.  All  for  some  reason  felt 
ill  at  ease,  but  all  of  them  considered  it  necessary  to 
approve  of  the  idea  itself,  and  immediately  after  such  an 
approval  began  to  express  their  doubts  as  to  the  success, 
and  for  some  reason  (all  of  them  without  exception)  to 
condemn  the  evident  indifference  and  coldness  of  .our 
society  and  of  all  men,  except  of  themselves. 

In  the  depth  of  my  heart  I  continued  to  feel  that  I  was 
not  doing  the  right  thing,  and  that  nothing  would  come 
of  it;  but  the  article  was  printed,  and  I  began  to  take 
part  in  the  census :  I  had  set  the  matter  a-going,  and  it 
drew  me  along. 


IV. 

At  my  request  they  assigned  to  me  a  district  of  the 
Khamovnicheski  Ward,  near  Smolensk  Market,  along  Pro- 
tochny  Lane,  between  Beregovoy  Passage  and  Nikolski 
Lane.  In  this  district  are  the  houses  which  are  collect- 
ively called  Ezhanov  House,  or  Rzh^nov  Fort.  These 
houses  at  one  time  belonged  to  Merchant  Ezhanov,  but 
now  belong  to  the  Zimins.  I  had  long  ago  heard  of  this 
place  as  the  purlieus  of  the  most  terrible  misery  and 
debauch,  and  so  had  asked  the  managers  of  the  census  to 
assign  me  to  this  district.     My  wish  was  fulfilled. 

After  receiving  the  instructions  from  the  City  Council, 
and  a  few  days  before  the  taking  of  the  census,  I  started 
on  a  round  of  my  district.  From  the  plan  which  was 
given  to  me  I  immediately  found  Rzhdnov  Fort. 

I  entered  by  Nikolski  Lane.  Nikolski  Lane  ends  on 
the  left  with  a  gloomy  house,  which  has  no  gate  fac- 
ing this  side;  I  guessed  from  the  aspect  of  the  house 
that  this  was  Ezhdnov  Fort. 

As  I  descended  Nikolski  Street,  I  came  abreast  of  some 
boys  from  ten  to  fourteen  years  of  age,  dressed  in  jabkets 
and  paltry  overcoats,  who  were  sliding  down-hill  or 
skating  on  one  skate  along  the  frozen  incline  of  the  side- 
walk in  front  of  this  house.  The  boys  were  all  in  rags, 
and,  like  all  city  boys,  bold  and  daring.  I  stopped  to 
take  a  look  at  them.  A  tattered  old  woman,  with  sallow, 
flabby  cheeks,  came  around  the  corner.  She  was  walking 
toward  the  city,  in  the  direction  of  Smolensk  Market,  and 
wheezing  terribly,  like  an  asthmatic  horse,  at  every  step 
she  was  taking.     When  she  came  abreast  with  me,  she 

24 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  25 

stopped  to  draw  a  snarling  breath.  In  any  other  place 
this  woman  would  have  asked  me  for  some  money,  but 
here  she  only  struck  up  a  conversation  with  me. 

"  You  see,"  she  said,  pointing  to  the  skating  boys,  "  they 
are  wasting  time !  They  will  be  just  such  Ezhanovians 
as  their  fathers." 

One  of  the  boys  in  an  overcoat  and  vizorless  cap  heard 
her  words  and  stopped. 

"  Don't  scold ! "  he  shouted  to  the  old  woman.  "  You 
are  yourself  a  Ezhanov  viper  !  " 

I  asked  the  boy  :  "  Do  you  live  here  ? " 

"  Yes,  and  she  does,  too.  She  has  stolen  a  boot-leg  ! " 
shouted  the  boy,  and,  raising  his  foot,  he  skated  past 
me. 

The  old  woman  discharged  a  lot  of  curses,  which  were 
interrupted  by  her  cough.  Just  then  a  ragged  old  man 
with  snow-white  hair  came  down  the  middle  of  the  street, 
swaying  his  arms  (in  one  of  them  he  carried  a  bundle 
with  a  white  loaf  and  some  cracknels).  The  old  man 
looked  as  though  he  had  just  braced  himself  with  a  dram. 
Evidently  he  had  heard  the  old  woman's  curses,  and  he 
took  her  part. 

"  Just  let  me  catch  you,  little  devils ! "  he  shouted  to 
the  boys,  pretending  to  make  for  them.  After  passing  me 
he  stepped  on  the  sidewalk.  On  the  Arbdt  this  old  man 
startles  people  by  his  decrepitude,  old  age,  and  wretched- 
ness ;  here  he  was  a  merry  labourer  returning  from  his 
daily  labour. 

I  followed  the  old  man.  He  turned  a  corner  to  the 
left,  into  Protochny  Lane,  and,  after  passing  the  whole 
house  and  the  gate,  disappeared  in  the  door  of  a  restau- 
rant. 

Two  gates  and  several  doors  front  on  Protdchny  Lane : 
they  are  those  of  a  restaurant,  a  tavern,  and  a  few  gro- 
ceries and  other  shops.  This,  indeed,  is  Ezhanov  Fort. 
Everything  is  here  gray,  diriy,  and  stinking,  —  the  build- 


26  WHAT   SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

ings,  the  shops,  the  yards,  the  people.  The  majority  of  the 
people  whom  I  met  here  were  tattered  and  half-dressed. 
Some  were  passing  by,  while  others  ran  from  door  to  door. 
Two  of  them  were  haggling  about  a  piece  of  some  rag.  I 
walked  all  around  the  building  from  the  side  of  Protdchny 
Lane  and  Beregovdy  Passage,  and,  upon  returning,  stopped 
at  the  gate  of  one  of  the  houses.  I  wanted  to  go  in  and 
see  what  they  were  doing  there,  inside,  but  I  felt  ill  at 
ease  at  what  I  should  say  if  they  asked  me  what  I 
wanted.     Still,  after  some  hesitation,  I  entered. 

The  moment  I  entered  the  courtyard  I  was  struck  by  a 
disgusting  stench.  The  yard  was  terribly  dirty.  I 
turned  around  a  comer,  and  that  very  moment  heard 
to  the  left  of  me,  in  an  upper  wooden  gallery,  the  tramp 
of  men  running,  at  first  along  the  deals  of  the  gallery, 
and  then  over  the  steps  of  the  staircase.  First  there 
came  running  out  a  lean  woman  with  sleeves  rolled  up,  in 
a  faded  pink  dress  and  with  shoes  on  her  bare  feet. 
After  her  came  a  shaggy-haired  man  in  a  red  shirt  and 
pantaloons  which  were  as  wide  as  a  petticoat,  and  in 
galoshes. 

At  the  foot  of  the  stairs  the  man  caught  the  woman. 

"  You  will  not  get  away  from  me,"  he  said,  laughing. 

"You  cross-eyed  devil,"  began  the  woman,  apparently 
flattered  by  this  persecution ;  but,  upon  seeing  me,  she 
shouted :  "  Whom  do  you  want  ? " 

As  I  did  not  want  anybody,  I  felt  embarrassed  and 
went  away.  There  was  nothing  remarkable  about  it,  but 
after  what  I  had  seen  outside  the  yard,  —  the  cursing 
woman,  the  merry  old  man,  and  the  skating  boys,  —  this 
incident  suddenly  showed  me  my  undertaking  from  an 
entirely  new  side.  I  had  undertaken  to  benefit  these 
people  with  the  aid  of  the  Moscow  rich.  Now  I  undeF- 
stood  for  the  first  time  that  all  these  unfortunates,  whom 
I  wanted  to  benefit,  had  not  only  a  time  when,  suffering 
from  hunger  and  cold,  they  waited  to  be  admitted  to  the 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  27 

house,  but  also  a  time  which  they  used  to  some  purpose ; 
that  they  had  twenty-four  hours  each  day  and  a  whole  life, 
which  I  had  never  thought  before.  I  now  understood  for 
the  first  time  that  all  these  people  had  not  only  the 
desire  to  protect  themselves  against  the  cold  and  to  get, 
something  to  eat,  but  also  must  Hve  somehow  those 
twenty-four  hours  of  each  day,  which  they  had  to  live 
like  any  other  being.  I  understood  that  these  men 
had  also  to  be  angry,  and  feel  weary,  and  brace  them- 
selves, and  have  their  brown  studies,  and  make  merry. 
However  strange  this  may  sound,  I  now  clearly  under- 
stood for  the  first  time  that  what  I  had  undertaken  could 
not  consist  merely  ia  feeding  and  clothing  a  thousand 
people,  —  like  feeding  and  putting  under  a  roof  a  thou- 
sand sheep,  —  but  that  it  ought  to  consist  in  doing  people 
good.  When  I  understood  that  each  of  these  thousand 
people  was  just  such  a  man  as  I  was,  with  just  such 
a  past,  just  such  passions,  temptations,  and  delusions,  just 
such  thoughts,  just  such  questions,  my  undertaking  sud- 
denly appeared  so  dijfficult  to  me  that  I  felt  my  impo- 
tence.    But  the  thing  was  begun,  and  I  continued  it. 


# 


V. 

On  the  first  appointed  day  the  student  census-takers 
started  in  the  morning,  but  I,  the  benefactor,  did  not  get 
to  them  before  noon.  I  could  not  have  come  earher, 
because  I  arose  at  ten,  then  drank  coffee  and  smoked, 
waiting  for  my  digestion  to  take  place.  I  arrived  at  noon 
at  the  gate  of  Kzh^nov  House. 

A  policeman  showed  me  a  restaurant  on  Beregovoy 
Passage,  where  the  census-takers  asked  those  to  come  who 
wanted  to  see  them.  I  entered  the  restaurant.  It  was 
a  dark,  stinking,  dirty  place.  In  front  was  the  counter, 
on  the  left,  a  small  room  with  tables  that  were  covered 
with  dirty  napkins ;  on  the  right,  a  large  room  with 
columns,  and  similar  tables  at  the  windows,  along  the 
walls.  At  some  of  the  tables,  drinking  tea,  sat  tattered 
and  decently  dressed  men,  such  as  workmen  and  small 
traders,  and  a  few  women.  The  restaurant  was  very  dirty, 
but  apparently  it  did  a  good  business.  The  facial  expres- 
sion of  the  clerk  behind  the  counter  was  businesslike,  and 
the  waiters  were  quick  and  attentive:  I  had  barely 
entered,  when  a  waiter  got  ready  to  take  off  my  overcoat 
and  receive  my  order.  Obviously  they  were  here  in  the 
habit  of  doing  prompt  and  exact  work. 

I  asked  about  the  census-takers. 

"Vdnya!"  shouted  a  small  man,  dressed  in  German 
fashion,  who  was  putting  something  into  a  cupboard 
behind  the  counter ;  he  was  the  proprietor  of  the  restau- 
rant, a  Kaluga  peasant,  Ivdn  Feddtych,  who  rented  half 
the  apartments  of  the  Zlmin  houses,  in  order  to  sublet 
them  to  other  people.     A  waiter,  a  boy  of  about  eighteen 

28 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  29* 

years  of  age,  lean,  hook-nosed,  sallow-faced,  ran  up  to 
him.  "  Take  the  gentleman  to  the  census-takers :  they 
have  gone  to  the  main  wing,  above  the  well." 

The  lad  threw  down  the  napkin,  put  on  an  overcoat 
over  his  white  shirt  and  white  trousers,  and  a  cap  with 
a  large  vizor,  and,  rapidly  moving  his  white  legs,  led  me 
through  a  back  door  which  shut  with  a  block.  In  the 
nasty,  stinking  kitchen  in  the  vestibule  we  met  an  old 
woman  who  was  cautiously  carrying  terribly  malodorous 
guts  that  were  wrapped  in  a  rag.  From  the  vestibule  we 
went  down  into  an  inclined  yard,  which  was  all  filled  up 
with  frame  buildings  on  lower  stone  stories.  The  stench 
in  this  yard  was  very  great.  The  centre  of  this  stench 
was  a  privy,  near  .which  there  was  always  a  crowd,  no 
matter  how  often  I  passed  there.  The  privy  itself  was 
not  a  place  of  defecations,  but  it  served  as  an  indication 
of  the  place  near  which  it  was  customary  to  defecate.  It 
was  impossible  not  to  notice  this  place,  whenever  one 
crossed  the  yard;  it  was  oppressive  to  enter  into  the 
pungent  atmosphere  of  the  stench  which  rose  from  it. 

The  lad  cautiously  guarded  his  white  pantaloons,  care- 
fully led  me  past  this  spot  over  the  frozen  impurities,  and 
walked  in  the  direction  of  one  of  the  buildings.  The 
men  who  were  crossing  the  yard  and  the  galleries  stopped 
to  take  a  look  at  me.  Apparently  a  neatly  dressed  man 
was  a  rarity  in  these  places. 

The  lad  asked  a  woman  whether  she  had  not  seen 
where  the  census-takers  were,  and  three  men  at  once 
answered  this  question ;  some  said  that  they  were  above 
the  well ;  others  said  that  they  had  gone  from  there,  and 
were  now  with  Nikita  Ivanovich.  An  old  man  in  a  shirt, 
who  was  fixing  himself  near  the  privy,  said  that  they 
were  in  Number  30.  The  lad  decided  that  this  informa- 
tion was  the  most  reliable,  and  so  led  me  to  Number  30, 
under  the  cover  of  a  basement  story,  into  darkness  and  into 
a  stench  which  was  different  from  the  one  in  the  yard.    We 


30  WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO   THEN? 

descended  lower  and  walked  along  an  earth  floor  of  a 
dark  corridor.  As  we  were  walking  along  the  corridor, 
a  door  was  opened  with  a  start,  and  a  drunken  old  man 
in  a  shirt,  who  was  evidently  not  a  peasant,  rushed  out 
from  the  room.  A  washerwoman,  with  sleeves  rolled  up, 
and  soapy  hands,  was  driving  and  pushing  this  man  with 
a  piercing  shriek.  Vdnya,  my  guide,  pushed  the  drunken 
man  aside  and  rebuked  him. 

"  It  will  not  do  to  make  such  a  racket,"  he  said,  "  and 
you  ,are  an  officer,  too." 

Then  we  arrived  at  the  door  of  Number  30.  Vanya 
pulled  the  door:  it  smacked,  having  been  stuck,  and 
opened,  and  we  were  surrounded  by  vapours  of  soap-suds 
and  by  the  pungent  odour  of  bad  victuals  and  of  tobacco, 
and  entered  into  complete  darkness.  The  windows  were 
on  the  opposite  side,  while  nearer  to  us  were  board 
corridors  on  the  right  and  on  the  left,  and  little  doors  at 
all  kinds  of  angles,  leading  into  rooms  that  were  unevenly 
partitioned  off  by  shingles  that  were  painted  white  with 
a  watery  paint.  In  a  dark  room  on  the  left  could  be 
seen  a  woman  washing  something  in  a  trough.  Through 
a  door  on  the  right  an  old  woman  could  be  seen. 
Through  another  open  door  I  saw  a  bearded,  red-faced 
peasant  in  bast  shoes,  who  was  sitting  on  a  bed  bench ; 
he  was  holding  his  hands  on  his  knees,  swaying  his  bast 
shoe  covered  feet,  and  looking  gloomily  at  them. 

At  the  end  of  the  corridor  there  was  a  little  door  which 
led  into  the  room  where  the  census-takers  were.  This 
was  the  room  of  the  landlady  of  the  whole  of  Number  30. 
She  rented  the  whole  number  from  Ivdn  Fedotych,  and 
let  it  out  to  permanent  renters  and  to  night  lodgers.  In 
this  tiny  room  a  student  census-taker,  with  his  cards,  was 
sitting  under  a  foil  image  and,  like  an  investigating  mag- 
istrate, examining  a  man  in  a  shirt  and  vest.  This  was 
the  landlady's  friend,  who  was  answering  the  questions  for 
her.     Here  was  also  the  landlady  —  an  old  woman  — 


WHAT   SHALL    VYE   DO   THEN?  31 

and  two  curious  lodgers.  When  I  arrived,  th6  room  was 
crowded  to  its  fullest  capacity.  I  pushed  my  way  to  the 
table.  The  student  and  I  exchanged  greetings,  and  he 
continued  his  questions.  I  looked  around  and  questioned 
the  inmates  of  this  apartment  for  my  own  purposes. 

It  turned  out  that  in  this  apartment  I  did  not  find  one 
on  whom  my  benefaction  could  be  bestowed.  In  spite  of 
the  poverty,  smallness,  and  dirt  of  these  quarters,  which 
startled  me  when  I  compared  them  with  the  mansion  in 
which  I  lived,  the  landlady  lived  in  comparative  ease, 
as  compared  with  the  poor  inhabitants  of  the  cities  ;  but 
in  comparison  with  the  village  poverty,  with  which  I  was 
well  acquainted,  she  lived  even  in  luxury.  She  had  a 
feather  bed,  a  quilted  coverlet,  a  samovar,  a  fur  coat, 
a  cupboard  with  dishes.  The  landlady's  friend  had  the 
same  well-to-do  appearance :  he  even  had  a  watch  with  a 
chain.  The  lodgers  were  poor,  but  there  was  not  one  who 
demanded  immediate  aid.  Those  who  wanted  help  were 
the  woman  at  the  wash-trough,  who  had  been  abandoned 
with  her  children  by  her  husband,  an  old  widow,  who, 
as  she  said,  had  no  means  of  support,  and  that  peasant  in 
the  bast  shoes,  who  told  me  that  he  had  not  had  that  day 
anything  to  eat.  But  upon  closer  inquiry  it  appeared 
that  all  these  persons  were  not  in  particular  want,  and 
that,  in  order  that  I  might  aid  them,  I  should  have  to 
become  better  acquainted  with  them. 

When  I  proposed  to  the  woman,  whom  her  husband 
had  abandoned,  to  put  the  children  in  a  children's  home, 
she  became  confused,  fell  to  musing,  and  thanked  me, 
but  apparently  it  was  not  what  she  wanted  :  she  pre- 
ferred a  contribution  in  money.  Her  eldest  girl  helped 
her  to  wash,  and  her  middle  girl  took  care  of  her  boy. 
The  old  woman  wanted  very  much  to  go  to  a  poor- 
house,  but,  upon  examining  her  comer,  I  saw  that  the 
woman  was  not  in  straits.  She  had  a  little  trunk  with 
some  possessions,  a  teapot  with  a  tin  mouth,  and  Mont- 


32  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

pensier  boxes  with  sugar  and  tea.  She  knitted  stockings 
and  gloves,  and  received  a  monthly  allowance  from  a 
benefactress.  But  the  peasant  was  evidently  not  so 
much  in  need  of  something  to  eat  as  of  something  to 
drink,  and  anything  which  might  have  been  given  to  him 
would  have  gone  into  the  tavern. 

Thus  these  quarters  did  not  contain  people  with  whom, 
I  thought,  the  house  was  filled,  such  as  I  could  make 
happy  by  giving  them  money.  These  poor,  so  it  seemed 
to  me,  were  of  a  doubtful  character.  I  made  a  note  of 
the  old  woman,  of  the  woman  with  the  children,  and 
of  the  peasant,  and  decided  that  it  would  be  necessary  to 
look  after  them,  but  only  after  I  should  have  busied 
myself  with  those  particularly  unfortunate  people  whom  I 
expected  to  find  in  the  house.  I  decided  that  the  aid 
would  have  to  be  furnished  in  a  given  order,  —  at  first  to 
those  who  needed  it  most,  and  then  to  these  people.  But 
in  the  next  quarters,  and  in  the  next,  it  was  the  same : 
the  people  were  all  such  as  had  to  be  investigated  before 
any  aid  was  offered  them.  There  were  no  unfortunates  to 
whom  money  was  to  be  given,  and  who,  having  been 
unhappy,  would  become  happy.  Though  I  ought  to  be 
ashamed  to  say  so,  I  began  to  be  disappointed,  because 
I  did  not  find  in  these  houses  anything  I  had  expected.  I 
had  expected  to  find  people  of  a  particular  kind,  but  when 
I  had  made  the  round  of  all  the  quarters,  I  convinced  my- 
self that  the  inhabitants  of  these  houses  were  not  at  all  a 
particular  kind  of  men,  but  precisely  such  men  as  I  saw 
myself  surrounded  by.  Even  as  among  us,  there  were 
among  them  people  who  were  more  or  less  good,  more  or 
loss  bad,  more  or  less  happy, -more  or  less  unhappy.  The 
unfortunate  ones  were  just  as  unfortunate  as  those  among 
us,  whose  misfortune  was  not  in  external  conditions  but 
within  themselves,  —  a  misfortune  which  could  not  be 
mended  by  a  bill. 


VI. 

The  inmates  of  these  houses  form  the  lower  urban 
population,  of  whom  there  must  be  more  than  one  hun- 
dred thousand  in  Moscow.  Here,  in  this  house,  there  are 
representatives  of  all  kinds  of  this  population ;  here  you 
will  find  small  masters  and  proprietors,  bootmakers,  brush- 
makers,  joiners,  turners,  shoemakers,  tailors,  blacksmiths, 
drivers,  self-supporting  traders  and  huckstresses,  washer- 
women, second-hand  dealers,  usurers,  day-labourers  and 
people  without  any  definite  occupations,  and  beggars, 
and  prostitutes. 

Here  are  many  of  the  same  class  of  people  which  I 
saw  in  front  of  Lyapinski  House,  but  here  they  are  scat- 
tered among  working  people.  Besides,  those  others  I  had 
seen  at  their  very  worst  time,  when  everything  was  spent 
in  food  and  drink,  and  they,  freezing  and  starving  and 
driven  out  of  the  restaurants,  were  waiting,  as  for  the 
heavenly  manna,  for  admission  into  the  free  lodging- 
house,  and  from  there  to  the  longed-for  jail,  in  order  to 
be  sent"  back  to  their  domicile  ;  whereas  here  I  saw  them 
amidst  a  majority  of  labouring  people,  and  at  a  time  when 
in  one  way  or  another  they  had  gained  three  or  five  kopeks 
for  a  night's  lodging,  and  at  times  roubles  for  food  and 
drink. 

And,  no  matter  how  strange  this  may  sound,  I  here 
experienced  nothing  resembling  the  feeling  which  I  had 
experienced  in  Lyapinski  House;  on  the  contrary,  dur- 
ing my  first  round,  both  I  and  the  students  experienced 
almost  a  pleasant  sensation,  —  but  why  do  I  say  "  almost 
pleasant  "  ?      That  is  not  true :  the  sensation  evoked  by 

33 


34  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

the  intercourse  with  these  people,  no  matter  how  strange 
this  may  seem,  was  simply  exceedingly  pleasant. 

The  first  impression  was  that  the  majority  of  people 
who'  were  living  here  were  labourers  and  very  good 
people. 

The  greater  part  of  the  inmates  we  found  at  work,  — 
the  washerwomen  over  their  troughs,  the  joiners  at  their 
tables,  the  shoemakers  on  their  stools.  The  close  quar- 
ters were  filled  with  people,  and  they  were  working  ener- 
getically and  merrily.  There  was  an  odour  of  workmen's 
perspiration,  and  of  hides  at  the  shoemaker's,  and  of  shav- 
ings at  the  joiner's,  and  frequently  we  heard  songs,  and 
saw  the  bared  muscular  arms  which  went  through  the 
habitual  motions  with  rapidity  and  with  agility.  We 
were  everywhere  met  with  mirth  and  with  kindness: 
nearly  everywhere  our  intrusion  into  the  habitual  life  of 
these  people  failed  to  rouse  those  ambitions,  that  desire  to 
show  their  importance  and  to  snub,  which  the  appearance 
of  the  census-takers  produced  in  the  majority  of  the  quar- 
ters of  the  well-to-do  people  ;  on  the  contrary,  to  all  our 
questions  these  people  answered  as  was  proper,  without 
ascribing  any  special  significance  to  them.  Our  questions 
merely  served  for  them  as  a  cause  for  amusement  and 
jesting  as  to  how  one  was  to  be  written  down,  who  was 
to  be  put  down  for  two,  and  what  two  would  stand  for 
one,  and  so  forth. 

Many  we  found  at  dinner  or  at  tea,  and  to  our  greeting, 
"  Bread  and  salt,"  or  "  Tea  and  sugar,"  they  invariably 
replied  by,  "  Please  to  join  us,"  and  even  moved  aside  to 
make  place  for  us.  Instead  of  purlieus  of  a  constantly 
changing  population,  which  we  had  expected  to  find  here, 
it  turned  out  that  in  this  house  there  were  many  apart- 
ments where  people  had  lived  for  a  long  time.  A  joiner 
and  his  workmen,  a  shoemaker  and  his  master  workman 
had  lived  for  ten  years  in  one  place.  At  the  shoemaker's 
it  was  very  dirty  and  crowded,  but  the  people  at  work 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  35 

were  very  cheerful.  I  tried  to  talk  to  one  of  the  work- 
men, as  I  wished  to  get  from  him  an  account  of  the 
wretchedness  of  his  condition  and  of  his  indebtedness  to 
the  master,  but  the  workman  did  not  understand  me  and 
spoke  in  the  highest  terms  of  his  master  and  his  life. 

In  one  apartment  there  Hved  an  old  man  and  his  wife. 
They  were  selling  apples.  Their  room  was  warm,  clean, 
and  full  of  every  good  thing.  The  floor  was  carpeted  with 
straw  matting,  which  they  got  in  the  apple  shop.  There 
were  trunks,  a  safe,  a  samovar,  and  dishes.  In  the  cor- 
ner were  a  number  of  images,  and  in  front  of  them  two 
lamps  were  burning.  Covered  fur  coats  were  hanging  on 
the  wall  behind  a  sheet.  The  old  woman  had  star-shaped 
wrinkles :  she  was  kind  and  talkative,  and  apparently 
took  dehght  in  her  quiet,  well-arranged  life. 

Ivan  Fedotych,  the  proprietor  of  the  restaurant  and  the 
landlord  of  the  apartments,  came  from  the  restaurant  and 
walked  with  us.  He  jested  cheerfully  with  many  renters, 
calling  them  by  their  names  and  patronymics,  and  gave 
us  short  sketches  of  them.  They  were  all  people  like 
the  rest  of  us,  —  Martin  Sem^noviches,  Peter  Petroviches, 
Marya  Ivanovnas,  —  people  who  did  not  consider  them- 
selves unfortunate,  and  who  indeed  were  like  the  rest  of 
us. 

We  had  prepared  ourselves  to  see  nothing  but  what 
would  be  terrible;  but,  instead  of  anything  terrible,  we 
saw  nothing  but  what  was  good,  what  involuntarily  evoked 
our  respect.  And  of  these  good  people  there  was  such  a 
multitude  that  the  ragged,  hopeless,  idle  people,  who  now 
and  then  were  met  with  among  them,  did  not  impair  the 
general  impression. 

The  students  were  not  «o  startled  by  it  as  I  was. 
They  were  simply  out  doing  something  useful  for  science, 
as  they  thought,  and  at  the  same  time  made  their  casual 
observations ;  but  I  was  a  benefactor,  —  I  went  out  to 
help  the  unfortunate,  lost,  corrupt  people,  whom  I  had 


36  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

expected  to  find  in  this  house.  Suddenly,  instead  of  un- 
fortunate, lost,  and  corrupt  people,  I  saw  a  large  number 
of  calm,  satisfied,  happy,  kind,  and  very  good  working 
people. 

This  impressed  itself  upon  me  very  vividly,  whenever 
I  met  in  these  quarters  that  very  crying  want  which  I 
was  prepared  to  assist. 

Whenever  I  met  this  want,  I  found  that  it  was  already 
attended  to,  and  that  the  aid  which  I  wanted  to  ofi*er 
to  it  had  already  been  given.  This  aid  had  been  given 
before  me,  and  by  whom  ?  By  those  same  unfortunate, 
corrupt  creatures,  whom  I  was  prepared  to  help,  and  it 
was  given  in  a  way  which  I  could  not  emulate. 

In  a  basement  lay  a  lonely  old  man  who  was  sick  with 
the  typhus.  The  old  man  did  not  have  a  friend.  A 
widow  with  a  little  girl,  a  stranger  to  him,  but  a  neigh- 
bour of  his,  took  care  of  him,  brought  tea  to  him,  and 
bought  medicine  for  him  with  her  own  money.  In  an- 
other apartment  a  woman  was  lying  sick  with  puerperal 
fever.  A  woman  who  was  making  a  living  by  debauch 
rocked  the  baby,  made  a  sucking-rag  for  it,  and  for  two 
days  did  not  go  out  to  her  calling.  A  girl  who  was  left  an 
orphan  was  taken  into  the  family  of  a  tailor,  who  him- 
self had  three  children.  Thus  the  only  unfortunates  that 
were  left  were  some  idle  people,  officials,  scribes,  lackeys 
out  of  a  job,  beggars,  drunkards,  prostitutes,  children,  who 
could  not  be  at  once  helped  with  money,  but  who  had 
to  be  carefully  examined,  taken  care  of,  and  given  work. 
I  was  in  search  of  pure  unfortunates,  such  as  were  unfor- 
tunate through  poverty,  and  as  could  be  helped  by  giving 
them  of  our  abundance ;  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  failed 
to  find  such,  and  that  all  the  unfortunates  I  came  across 
were  such  that  much  time  and  care  would  have  to  be 
expended  on  them. 


VII. 

The  unfortunates  whom  I  marked  down  naturally  clas- 
sified themselves  in  my  imagination  according  to  three 
categories,  namely,  as  people  who  had  lost  their  former 
profitable  situation  and  were  waiting  to  return  to  it  (such 
people  belonged  both  to  the  higher  and  to  the  lower  con- 
ditions of  life)  ;  then  prostitutes,  of  whom  there  were  very 
many  in  these  houses  ;  and  the  third  category,  —  children. 
The  largest  number  marked  down  by  me  belonged  to  the 
first  category,  to  those  who  had  lost  their  profitable  sit- 
uations and  were  wishing  to  return  to  them.  Of  such 
people,  especially  of  those  who  belonged  to  the  burgher 
and  the  official  worlds,  there  were  very  many  in  these 
houses.  In  nearly  all  the  quarters  which  we  entered 
with  the  landlord,  Ivan  Fedotych,  we  were  told  by  him : 
"Here  you  do  not  need  to  write  the  census  card  your- 
selves ;  here  you  will  find  a  man  who  can  do  all  that,  if 
only  he  is  not  on  a  spree." 

Ivan  Fedotych  would  call  such  a  man  by  his  first  name 
and  patronymic,  and  it  always  turned  out  to  be  one  of 
those  men  who  had  fallen  from  a  higher  condition  of  hfe. 
To  Ivan  Fedotych's  call  an  impoverished  gentleman  or 
official  would  creep  out  from  some  dark  corner,  and  he 
would  generally  be  drunk  and  always  undressed.  If  he 
was  not  drunk,  he  was  always  dehghted  to  take  hold 
of  the  matter  which  was  placed  before  him,  significantly 
shook  his  head,  frowned,  put  in  his  remarks  with  learned 
terms,  and  with  cautious  tenderness  held  the  clean, 
printed  red  card  in  his  trembling,  dirty  hands,  and  with 
contempt  eyed  his  fellow  lodgers,  as  though  triumphantly 

37 


38  WHAT    SUALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

asserting  the  superiority  of  his  education  before  those 
who  had  humiliated  him  so  often.  He  was  obviously 
glad  to  commune  with  that  world  where  they  printed 
cards  on  red  paper,  and  where  he  had  once  been 
himself.  To  my  inquiries  about  his  life,  such  a  man 
nearly  always  rephed  readily  and  began  with  enthusiasm 
to  recite,  like  a  prayer  learned  by  rote,  the  history  of  those 
calamities  to  which  he  had  been  subjected,  and,  above  all, 
of  his  former  position,  where  he  belonged  according  to  his 
education. 

Such  men  were  widely  scattered  through  Ezhdnov 
House.  One  of  the  apartments  is  soHdly  occupied  by 
such  men  and  women.  When  we  came  up  to  it,  Ivdn 
Fedotych  said  to  us :  "  Here  comes  the  apartment  of  the 
gentry."  The  apartment  was  quite  full:  nearly  all  of 
them,  about  forty,  were  at  home.  More  thoroughly  fallen, 
unfortunate,  neglected  old  persons,  and  pale,  hopeless 
young  persons  could  not  be  found  in  the  whole  house.  I 
talked  with  some  of  them.  It  was  nearly  always  the 
same  story,  only  in  various  degrees  of  evolution.  Each  of 
them  had  been  rich,  or  a  father,  a  brother,  uncle,  had  been 
or  still  was  rich,  or  his  father,  or  he  himself,  had  occupied 
a  fine  position.  Then  a  misfortune  occurred,  caused  by 
some  envious  person,  or  by  his  own  goodness,  or.  %5^  some 
special  accident,  and  he  lost  everything,  and  now  was 
doomed  to  perish  in  these  improper,  hateful  surroundings, 
—  covered  with  lice,  dressed  in  rags,  among  drunkards 
and  harlots,  feeding  on  liver  and  bread,  and  extending  the 
hand  for  alms. 

All  the  thoughts,  wishes,  and  recollections  of  these 
people  are  directed  only  to  the  past.  The  present  ap- 
pears to  them  as  something  unnatural,  abominable,  and 
unworthy  of  attention.  Not  one  of  them  has  a  present. 
They  have  only  recollections  of  the  past  and  expectations 
in  the  future,  which  may  be  realized  at  any  moment,  and 
for  the  realization  of  which  very  little  is  needed,  but  this 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  39 

very  little  is  wanting  and  is  not  to  be  had,  and  so  life  is 
being  uselessly  ruined,  one  having  suffered  for  a  year, 
another  for  five,  and  a  third  for  thirty  years.  One  needs 
only  to  dress  himself  in  decent  clothes,  in  order  to  make 
his  appearance  before  a  person  who  is  favourably  inclined 
to  him ;  another  needs  only  to  put  on  decent  clothes,  pay 
his  bills,  and  reach  Or^l ;  a  third  needs  only  to  redeem  his 
mortgaged  property  and  obtain  some  small  means  for 
the  continuation  of  his  case  at  law,  which  must  end  in  his 
favour,  and  then  all  will  be  well  again.  They  all  say  that 
they  need  only  something  external,  in  order  that  they 
may  get  back  to  the  condition  which  alone  they  consider 
natural  and  happy  for  them. 

If  I  had  not  been  befogged  by  my  pride  of  virtue,  T 
needed  only  to  scan  a  little  their  young  and  their  old,  for 
the  most  part  weak,  sensual,  but  good  faces,  in  order  to 
understand  that  their  misfortune  was  incorrigible  by 
external  means ;  that  they  could  not  be  happy  in  any 
situation,  if  their  view  of  life  remained  the  same ;  that 
they  were  not  a  special  class  of  people,  in  unusually 
unfortunate  circumstances,  but  just  such  people  as  we 
were  surrounded  by  on  all  sides,  and  as  we  ourselves  were. 
I  remember  that  my  communion  with  this  class  of  unfor- 
tunates was  particularly  hard  for  me.  Now  I  understand 
why  it  was  so :  I  saw  myself  in  them  as  in  a  mirror.  If 
I  had  stopped  to  think  of  my  life  and  of  the  lives  of  the 
men  of  our  circle,  I  should  have  seen  that  between  us 
there  was  no  essential  difference. 

If  those  who  are  around  me  now  live  in  grand  quarters 
and  in  their  own  houses  on  the  Sivtsev  Yrazhok  and  on 
the  Dmitrovka,  and  not  in  Rzhanov  House,  and  still  eat 
and  drink  palatable  things,  and  not  liver  and  herring  with 
bread,  that  does  not  keep  them  from  being  just  as  un- 
happy. They  are  just  as  dissatisfied  with  their  situation, 
regretting  the  past  and  wishing  for  something  better,  and 
this  better  situation  which  they  wish  for  is  just  such  as 


40  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

the  inmates  of  Rzhdnov  House  desire,  that  is,  such  as  will 
make  it  possible  for  them  to  work  less  and  make  more 
extensive  use  of  the  labours  of  others.  The  difference  is 
only  in  the  degree  and  the  time. 

If  I  had  then  stopped  to  think,  I  should  have  under- 
stood it ;  but  I  did  not  stop  to  think :  I  questioned  these 
people  and  noted  them  down,  hoping  to  aid  them  later, 
after  I  should  have  learned  of  their  conditions  and  their 
needs.  I  did  not  understand  then  that  such  a  man  could 
be  helped  only  by  changing  his  world  conception  ;  but,  in 
order  to  change  the  world  conception  of  another  person, 
a  man  must  first  have  his  own  better  world  conception 
and  live  in  accordance  with  it,  whereas  mine  was  just 
such  as  theirs  was,  and  I  lived  in  accordance  with  the 
world  conception  which  had  to  be  changed  in  order  that 
these  people  should  stop  being  unhappy. 

I  did  not  see  that  these  people  were  unhappy,  not 
because  they,  so  to  speak,  lacked  nutritive  food,  but 
because  their  stomachs  were  ruined,  and  they  no  loilger 
demanded  nutritive  food,  but  such  as  roused  their 
appetite;  I  did  not  see  that,  to  aid  them,  I  was  not  to 
offer  them  food,  but  should  cure  their  ruined  stomachs. 
Though  I  am  anticipating  here,  I  will  say  that  I  actually 
did  not  help  a  single  one  of  the  men  whose  names  I  Had 
taken  down,  although  for  some  of  them  precisely  that 
was  done  which  they  had  wanted,  and  which,  it  seemed, 
ought  to  have  put  them  on  their  feet.  I  specially  re- 
member three  of  these  people.  All  three  of  them  are, 
after  numerous  upliftings  and  falls,  in  precisely  the  same 
condition  in  which  they  were  three  years  ago. 


VIII. 

^The  second  category  of  unfortunates  whom  I  had  hoped 
to  help  later  was  that  of  the  prostitutes ;  of  such  women 
there  is  a  very  large  variety  in  Rzhdnov  House,  —  from 
young  ones,  who  resemble  women,  to  old  ones,  terrible  to 
look  at,  who  have  lost  every  human  semblance.  This 
hope  of  helping  the  women,  which  I  had  not  had  in  mind 
before,  arose  under  the  following  circumstance. 

It  was  in  the  middle  of  our  census-taking,  and  we  had 
by  that  time  worked  out  a  certain  mechanical  method  of 
procedure. 

As  we  entered  new  quarters,  we  immediately  asked  for 
the  landlord  of  the  rooms ;  one  of  us  sat  down,  clearing  a 
place  where  he  could  write,  and  a  second  walked  from 
corner  to  corner,  questioning  each  person  separately,  and 
transmitting  the  information  to  the  recorder. 

Upon  entering  one  of  the  apartments  of  the  basement 
story,  a  student  went  to  find  the  landlord,  while  I  began 
to  question  all  those  who  were  in  these  quarters.  The 
quarters  were  arranged  as  follows:  In  the  middle  of  a 
room  twenty  feet  square  there  was  a  stove ;  from  the 
stove  radiated  four  partitions,  forming  four  smaller  com- 
partments. In  the  first  passage  room  there  were  four 
cots  and  two  persons,  —  an  old  man  and  a  woman.  After 
this  came  a  long  compartment:  here  was  the  landlord, 
a  young,  respectable-looking,  extremely  pale  burgher, 
dressed  in  a  gray  cloth  coat  without  sleeves.  On  the 
left  of  the  first  corner  was  the  third  compartment :  there 
was  a  man  asleep,  no  doubt  drunk,  and  a  woman  in  a 
pink   blouse,    which    was   open  in   front    and   gathered 

41 


42  WHAT   SHALL    WE    DO    THEN  ? 

behind ;  the  fourth  compartment  was  beyond  a  partition : 
it  was  entered  from  the  landlord's  room. 

The  student  went  to  the  landlord's  room,  and  I  stopped 
in  the  passage  room  to  question  the  old  man  and  the 
woman.  The  man  was  a  master  printer,  but  now  had  no 
means  of  support.  The  woman  was  the  wife  of  a  cook. 
I  went  to  the  third  compartment  and  questioned  the 
woman  in  the  blouse  about  the  sleeping  man.  She  said 
that  he  was  a  guest.  I  asked  the  woman  who  she  was. 
She  said  she  was  a  Moscow  burgher  woman. 

"  What  is  your  occupation  ? " 

She  laughed,  and  gave  me  no  answer. 

"  How  do  you  support  yourself  ? "  I  repeated,  thinking 
that  she  had  not  understood  my  first  question. 

"  I  sit  in, the  restaurant,"  she  said. 

I  did  not  understand,  and  again  asked : 

"  What  do  you  live  by  ? " 

She  made  no  reply,  and  only  laughed.  In  the  fourth 
compartment,  where  we  had  not  yet  been,  there  were  also 
heard  laughing  female  voices.  The  landlord  came  out  of 
his  compartment,  and  walked  over  to  us.  He  had  appar- 
ently heard  my  questions  and  the  woman's  answer.  He 
cast  a  stern  glance  upon  the  woman,  and  turned  to  me : 
"A  prostitute,"  he  said,  obviously  satisfied,  because  he 
knew  the  word  which  is  used  in  official  language  and 
pronounced  it  correctly.  Having  said  this,  he  with  a 
faint  and  respectful  smile  of  satisfaction,  which  was  meant 
for  me,  turned  to  the  woman.  The  moment  he  turned  to 
her,  his  whole  face  was  changed.  Speaking  in  that  pecul- 
iar, contemptuous,  quick  tone,  with  which  one  addresses 
a  dog,  and  without  looking  at  her,  he  said : 

"  What  use  is  there  of  talking  bosh,  *  I  sit  in  a  restau- 
rant '  ?  You  sit  in  a  restaurant !  Say  outright,  —  a 
prostitute,"  he  repeated  the  word.  "  She  does  not  know 
how  to  call  herself." 

His  tone  offended  me. 


WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  43 

"  It  is  not  proper  for  us  to  put  her  to  shame,"  I  said. 
"  If  all  of  us  lived  in  godly  fashion,  there  would  be  none 
of  them." 

"  Well,  that  is  so,"  said  the  landlord,  with  an  unnatural 
smile. 

"  Then  we  ought  not  to  rebuke  them,  but  to  pity  them. 
Is  it  their  fault  ? " 

I  do  not  remember  how  I  expressed  myself,  but  I 
remember  that  I  was  offended  by  the  contemptuous  tone 
of  this  youthful  landlord  of  the  quarters  which  were  full 
of  women  whom  he  called  prostitutes,  and  I  was  sorry 
for  this  woman,  and  so  I  expressed  both  sentiments.  The 
moment  I  had  said  this,  the  boards  of  the  beds  in  the 
compartment  where  the  female  voices  were  heard  began 
to  creak,  and  above  the  partition,  which  did  not  reach  as 
high  as  the  ceiling,  there  rose  a  curly,  dishevelled  female 
head  with  small,  swollen  eyes  and  a  shining  red  face,  and 
after  her  a  second  and  a  third  head.  They  were  evidently 
standing  on  their  beds,  and  aU  three  of  them  stretched 
their  necks  and  with  bated  breath  and  strained  attention 
looked  silently  at  us. 

There  ensued  an  embarrassing  silence.  The  student, 
who  had  been  smiling  before,  became  serious ;  the  land- 
lord became  embarrassed,  and  lowered  his  eyes ;  the 
women  did  not  dare  to  draw  breath,  and  looked  at  me, 
and  waited.  I  was  embarrassed  more  than  the  rest.  I 
had  not  expected  to  see  a  casual  word  produce  such  an 
effect.  It  was  as  though  Ezekiel's  field  of  death,  covered 
with  dead  bones,  had  quivered  by  the  touch  of  the  spirit, 
and  the  dead  bones  had  come  to  hf».  I  unwittingly 
uttered  a  word  of  love  and  of  compassion,  and  this  word 
acted  upon  all  persons  as  though  they  had  all  been  waiting 
for  this  word,  in  order  to  cease  being  corpses,  and  come  to 
life  again.  They  kept  looking  at  me  and  waiting  for 
what  would  come  next.  They  were  waiting  for  me  to  say 
those  words  and  do  those  acts  which  would  make  the 


44  WHAT   SHALL    WE   DO   THEN? 

bones  come  together,  be  covered  with  flesh,  and  come  to 
life  again.  But  I  felt  that  I  did  not  possess  those  words 
nor  those  acts  with  which  I  might  continue  what  I  had 
begun ;  I  felt  in  the  bottom  of  my  heart  that  I  had  lied, 
that  I  was  precisely  such  as  they  were,  and  that  I  had 
nothing  else  to  say,  and  I  began  to  record  the  names  and 
occupations  of  all  the  persons  in  these  quarters. 

This  incident  led  me  into  a  new  delusion,  —  into  the 
thought  that  it  was  possible  to  help  these  unfortunates 
also.  In  my  self-conceit  it  then  appeared  to  me  that 
that  was  easy.  1  said  to  myself :  "  We  will  note  down 
these  women  also  and  lat&r  we  "  (I  did  not  render  myself 
any  account  as  to  who  these  "  we  "  were)  "  shall  busy  our- 
selves with  them."  I  imagined  that  we,  those  men  who 
for  the  period  of  several  generations  had  brought  these 
women  to  such  a  state,  would  one  beautiful  day  bethink 
ourselves  and  mend  all  that  at  once.  And  yet,  if  I  had 
only  recalled  my  conversation  with  that  lewd  woman  who 
was  rocking  the  baby  of  the  woman  sick  in  childbirth,  I 
might  have  comprehended  the  whole  madness  of  this 
supposition. 

When  we  saw  this  woman  with  the  child,  we  thought 
that  it  was  her  child.  In  reply  to  the  question  who  she 
was,  she  answered  outright,  "  A  girl."  She  did  not  say, 
"  A  prostitute."  It  was  only  that  burgher,  the  landlord, 
who  had  used  that  terrible  word.  My  supposition  that 
she  had  a  baby  gave  me  the  idea  of  bringing  her  out  of 
her  situation.     I  asked  : 

"  Is  this  your  child  ?  " 

"  No,  it  belongs  to  this  woman." 

"  Why,  then,  do  you  rock  it  ? " 

"  She  asked  me  to  :  she  is  dying." 

Though  my  supposition  proved  incorrect,  I  continued  to 
speak  to  her  in  the  same  spirit.  I  asked  her  who  she  was, 
and  how  she  had  come  to  her  present  condition.  She 
cheerfully  and  in  a  simple  manner  told  ' me  her  story. 


>CALirq5§^ 

"SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  45 

She  was  the  daughter  of  a  factory  hand,  a  Moscow 
hurgher.  She  had  been  left  an  orphan,  and  her  aunt  took 
her  to  her  house.  From  her  aunt's  she  started  frequenting 
the  restaurants.  Her  aunt  was  dead  now.  When  I  asked 
her  whether  she  did  not  want  to  change  her  manner  of 
life,  my  question  apparently  did  not  even  interest  her. 
Indeed,  how  could  the  proposition  of  something  quite 
impossible  interest  a  person  ?     She  smiled,  and  said : 

"  But  who  will  take  me  with  my  yellow  police  card  ? " 

"  Suppose  I  found  you  a  place  as  a  cook  ? "  I  said. 

This  idea  occurred  to  me,  because  she  was  a  strong, 
blonde  woman,  with  a  silly-looking  round  face.  Cooks 
are  generally  of  this  description.  My  words  evidently 
displeased  her. 

"  A  cook  !  But  I  cannot  bake  bread,"  she  said,  laugh- 
ing. She  said  that  she  could  not  be  one,  but  I  saw  by 
her  face  that  she  did  not  want  to  be  a  cook,  because  she 
considered  the  position  and  calling  of  a  cook  to  be 
low. 

This  woman,  who  in  the  simplest  manner  possible,  like 
the  widow  of  the  Gospel,  sacrificed  everything  she  had  for 
the  sake  of  the  sick  mother,  like  her  other  companions, 
regarded  the  condition  of  a  working  man  as  low  and  worthy 
of  contempt.  She  was  brought  up  to  live  without,  work- 
ing, and  to  hve  a  life  which  by  those  who  surrounded  her 
was  considered  natural  for  her.  In  this  did  her  mis- 
fortune lie.  Through  this  misfortune  she  had  got  into 
her  present  state  and  was  maintaining  herself  in  it.  That 
had  brought  her  to  loaf  in  restaurants.  Which  of  us, 
man  or  woman,  will  correct  her  false  conception  of  life  ? 
Where,  in  our  midst,  are  those  people  who  are  convinced 
that  any  life  of  labour  is  more  respectable  than  a  life  of 
idleness,  —  who  are  convinced  of  it,  and  live  in  accord- 
ance with  that  conviction,  and  in  accordance  with  that 
conviction  value  and  esteem  TDeople  ?  If  I  had  stopped  to 
think  of  it,  I  should  have  comprehended  that  neither  I 


46  WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN? 

nor  any  one  else  of  those  whom  I  know  could  cure  this 
disease. 

I  should  have  comprehended  that  those  startled  and 
meek  heads  that  were  thrust  forward  above  the  partition 
were  expressing  nothing  but  amazement  at  the  sympathy 
which  I  had  given  utterance  to,  and  by  no  means  hope  in 
having  their  immorality  mended.  They  do  not  see  the 
immorality  of  their  lives.  They  see  that  they  are  despised 
and  cursed,  but  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  comprehend 
why  they  are  despised.  Their  lives  have  been  passed 
since  childhood  amidst  just  such  women,  who,  they  know 
full  well,  have  always  existed  and  are  necessary  to  society, 
so  necessary  that  there  are  special  officers  whose  duty  it 
is  to  look  after  their  regular  existence.  Besides,  they 
know  that  they  exercise  power  over  men  and  control 
them,  often  more  completely  than  do  other  women.  They 
see  that  their  position  in  society,  despite  the  fact  that 
everybody  curses  them,  is  recognized  by  women  and  by 
men  and  by  the  authorities,  and  so  they  fail  to  under- 
stand what  they  are  to  repent  of  or  why  they  should 
mend. 

During  one  of  the  rounds  a  student  told  me  that  in  one 
of  the  rooms  there  was  a  woman  who  carried  on  a  trade 
with  her  thirteen-year-old  daughter.  As  I  wished  to  save 
this  girl,  I  went  directly  to  that  room.  The  mother  and 
the  daughter  were  hving  in  great  poverty.  The  mother, 
a  small,  swarthy  prostitute  of  about  forty  years  of  age, 
was  not  merely  homely,  but  disagreeably  so.  The  daughter 
was  just  as  repulsive.  To  all  my  roundabout  questions 
as  to  their  life,  the  mother  answered  me  curtly,  and  with 
suspicion  and  hostility,  obviously  feeling  me  to  be  an 
enemy  with  evil  intentions  ;  the  daughter  made  no  replies 
and  did  not  look  at  her  mother,  having  evidently  full 
confidence  in  her  mother.  They  did  not  evoke  any  sincere 
pity  in  me,  but  rather  disgust ;  but  I  decided  that  it  was 
necessary,  to  save  the  daughter,  to  get  the  ladies  interested 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  47 

who  sympathized  with  the  miserable  condition  of  these 
women,  and  to  send  them  thither. 

However,  if  I  had  stopped  to  think  of  the  mother's 
long  past,  of  how  she  had  borne,  reared,  and  brought  up 
her  daughter  in  her  condition,  no  doubt  without  the 
slightest  aid  from  people  and  with  heavy  sacrifices ;  if  I 
had  stopped  to  think  of  that  view  of  life  which  had  formed 
itself  in  this  woman,  —  I  should  have  understood  that  in 
the  mother's  act  there  was  positively  nothing  bad  or 
immoral :  she  was  doing  for  her  daughter  all  she  could, 
that  is,  what  she  considered  best  for  herself.  It  is  possible 
by  force  to  take  the  daughter  away  from  her  mother ;  but 
it  is  impossible  to  convince  the  mother  that  she  is  doing 
wrong  in  selling  her  daughter.  If  it  comes  to  saving,  it 
is  the  mother  that  ought  to  be  saved;  above  all,  she 
ought  to  be  saved  from  that  view  of  life,  approved  by  all 
men,  which  makes  it  possible  for  a  woman  to  live  out  of 
wedlock,  that  is,  without  bearing  children  and  without 
working,  serving  only  for  the  gratification  of  sensuality. 

If  I  had  stopped  to  think  of  it,  I  should  have  compre- 
hended that  the  majority  of  those  ladies  whom  I  wanted 
to  send  there  for  the  purpose  of  saving  this  girl  not  only 
hved  themselves  without  bringing  forth  children  and 
without  work,  serving  only  the  gratification  of  sensuality, 
but  also  brought  up  their  daughters  for  the  same  life :  one 
mother  takes  her  daughter  to  the  restaurant,  another  takes 
hers  to  court  or  to  balls.  But  the  world  conception  is 
the  same  with  either  mother,  namely,  that  a  woman  must 
gratify  a  man's  lust,  and  that  for  this  she  has  to  be  fed, 
and  dressed,  and  taken  care  of.  How,  then,  can  our  ladies 
improve  this  woman  and  her  daughter  ? 


IX. 

More  extravagant  still  was  my  relation  to  the  children. 
In  my  capacity  of  benefactor  I  turned  my  attention  to 
the  children  also,  wishing  to  save  the  innocent  creatures 
that  were  going  to  perdition  in  this  den  of  debauch,  and 
took  down  their  names,  intending  to  busy  myself  with 
them  later. 

Among  the  children  I  was  particularly  struck  by  twelve- 
year-old  Serezha.  This  bright,  wide-awake  boy,  who  had 
been  living  at  a  shoemaker's,  but  was  now  left  without  a 
home,  because  his  master  was  in  jail,  I  pitied  with  my 
whole  soul,  and  I  wanted  to  do  him  some  good. 

I  will  now  tell  how  my  attempt  at  benefiting  him 
ended,  because  the  story  of  this  boy  shows  better  than 
anything  my  false  position  in  my  capacity  as  benefactor. 
I  took  the  boy  to  my  house,  and  put  him  in  the  kitchen, 
—  it  was  certainly  impossible  to  take  a  lousy  boy  out  of 
the  den  of  debauch  into  my  children's  rooms !  And  I 
considered  myself  particularly  good  and  kind,  because  he 
did  not  embarrass  me,  but  the  servants  in  the  kitchen, 
and  because  it  was  not  I  who  fed  him,  but  our  cook,  and 
because  I  gave  him  some  old  clothes  to  wear. 

The  boy  stayed  about  a  week.  During  this  time  I  once 
or  twice,  in  passing  him,  said  a  few  words  to  him,  and 
during  my  constitutioDal  called  on  a  shoemaker  I  knew, 
offering  him  the  boy  as  an  apprentice.  A  peasant,  who 
happened  to  call  at  my  house,  invited  him  to  join  his 
family  in  the  village :  the  boy  refused,  and  within  a  week 
disappeared.  I  went  to  Rzh^nov  House  to  inquire  about 
him.  He  had  returned  there,  but  when  I  called  he  was 
not  at  home.     This  was  the  second  day  he  had  been  going 

48 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  49 

to  Pry^snenski  Ponds,  where  he  hired  out  at  thirty  kopeks 
a  day  to  act  as  a  costumed  wild  man  leading  an  elephant 
in  a  procession.  They  were  giving  some  kind  of  a  show 
there.  I  called  a  second  time,  but  he  was  so  ungrateful 
that  he  evidently  avoided  me. 

If  I  had  then  stopped  to  think  of  the  life  of  this  boy 
and  of  my  own,  I  should  have  comprehended  that  the 
boy  was  spoiled  by  this,  that  he  had  discovered  the  possi- 
bility of  a  merry  life  without  labour,  that  he  had  lost  the 
habit  of  work.  And  I,  to  benefit  and  improve  him,  took 
him  to  my  house,  where  he  saw  what  ?  My  children,  — 
those  who  were  older  than  he,  and  younger,  and  of  his 
age,  —  who  not  only  had  never  worked  for  themselves, 
but  did  everything  in  their  power  to  give  work  to  others, 
who  soiled  and  ruined  everything  about  them,  and  gorged 
themselves  on  fat,  savoury,  and  sweet  food,  and  broke 
dishes,  and  spilled  and  threw  to  the  dogs  such  food  as  to 
this  boy  appeared  as  dainties.  If  I  took  him  out  of  the 
den  and  brought  him  to  a  good  place,  he  could  not  help  but 
acquire  those  views  which  exist  in  respect  to  life  in  that 
good  place ;  and  from  these  views  he  saw  that  in  a  good 
place  it  was  necessary  to  live  in  such  a  way  as  to  do  no 
work,  and  to  eat  and  drink  sweet  things,  and  to  live  merrily. 

It  is  true,  he  did  not  know  that  my  children  were 
working  very  hard  to  study  the  declensions  out  of  the 
Latin  and  the  Greek  grammars,  and  he  would  not  have  been 
able  to  comprehend  the  aims  of  these  labours.  But  it  is  im- 
possible to  overlook  the  fact  that,  if  he  had  comprehended 
this,  the  effect  of  my  children's  example  would  have  been 
more  powerful  still.  He  would  have  comprehended  that 
my  children  were  being  educated  in  such  a  way  that  they 
might  have  nothing  to  do  at  present  and  should  in  the 
future,  by  making  use  of  their  diploma,  be  able  to  work 
as  little  as  possible  and  enjoy  the  benefits  of  hfe  as  much 
as  possible.  He  understood  this,  and  so  did  not  go  with 
the  peasant  to  look  after  his  cattle  and  eat  potatoes  and 


50  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

drink  kvas  with  him,  but,  instead,  went  to  the  Zoological 
Garden,  to  lead  an  elephant  for  thirty  kopeks,  while  clad 
as  a  wild  man. 

I  might  have  comprehended  how  foohsh  it  was  of  me, 
who  was  educating  my  children  in  complete  idleness  and 
luxury,  to  correct  other  people  and  their  children,  who 
were  perishiug  from  idleness  in  Ezh^nov  House,  which  I 
have  called  a  den,  but  in  which,  however,  three-fourths  of 
the  people  worked  for  themselves  and  for  others.  But  I 
did  not  understand  anything  about  it. 

There  were  very  many  children  in  Ezhanov  House, 
who  were  in  a  most  miserable  state :  there  were  children 
of  prostitutes,  and  orphans,  and  children  carried  by  beg- 
gars on  the  streets.  They  were  all  very  wretched ;  but 
my  experience  with  Ser^zha  showed  me  that,  Jiving  the 
life  I  did,  I  was  not  able  to  help  them.  While  Ser^zha 
had  been  living  at  our  house,  I  noticed  in  myself  a  desire 
to  conceal  from  him  our  life,  especially  the  life  of  our 
children.  I  felt  that  all  my  endeavours  to  lead  him  to  a 
good  life  of  labour  were  destroyed  by  the  examples  of  our 
life  and  of  that  of  our  children.  It  is  easy  enough  to 
take  a  child  away  from  a  prostitute,  or  from  beggars.  It 
is  very  easy,  having  money,  to  wash  and  clean  him  up, 
and  dress  him  in  clean  clothes,  feed  him,  and  even  teach 
him  all  kinds  of  sciences ;  but  it  is  very  difficult,  and  even 
impossible,  for  us,  who  do  not  earn  our  bread,  but  do  the 
very  opposite,  to  teach  him  to  earn  his  own  bread,  because 
with  our  examples  and  with  the  material  improvements  of 
his  life,  which  do  not  cost  us  anything,  we  teach  him  the 
very  opposite.  You  can  take  a  puppy  and  feed  him,  and 
teach  him  to  carry  somethiug,  and  enjoy  the  sight  of  him ; 
but  it  is  not  enough  to  rear  and  bring  up  a  man,  and  4 
teach  him  Greek :  he  has  to  be  taught  to  live,  that  is,  to 
take  less  from  others,  and  give  more ;  and  we  are  unable 
to  teach  him  to  do  the  opposite,  whether  we  take  him  to 
our  house,  or  send  him  to  a  special  homa 


I  NO  longer  experienced  that  sentiment  of  compassion 
for  people  and  of  disgust  with  myself  which  I  had  expe- 
rienced in  Lyapinski  House :  I  was  all  absorbed  in  the 
desire  to  fulfil  the  work  which  I  had  undertaken,  —  to  do 
good  to  the  people  whom  I  should  meet  here.  Strange  to 
say,  one  would  think  that  doing  good,  giving  money 
to  others,  is  a  very  good  thing,  and  ought  to  dispose  one 
to  the  love  of  men,  but  the  very  opposite  took  place :  it 
provoked  my  ill-will  and  condemnation  of  people.  In  the 
eveniQg  of  the  first  day's  round  there  happened  a  scene 
exactly  like  the  one  in  Lyapinski  House ;  ,but  this  scene 
did  not  produce  on  me  the  same  impression  as  in  Lya- 
pinski House,  but  evoked  an  entirely  different  feeling. 
It  began  with  this,  that  in  one  of  the  quarters  I  found 
an  unfortunate  who  demanded  immediate  aid:  it  was  a 
hungry  woman,  who  had  not  eaten  for  two  days. 

It  was  like  this :  in  one  very  large,  almost  empty  lodg- 
ing apartment  I  asked  an  old  woman  whether  there  were 
there  any  very  poor  people,  such  as  did  not  have  anything 
to  eat.  The  old  woman  thought  for  awhile  and  men- 
tioned two  persons ;  then  she  seemed  to  recall  something. 

"Oh,  yes,  there  is  one  lying  here,"  she  said,  peering 
into  one  of  the  occupied  bunks.  "  This  woman,  I  think, 
has  not  had  anything  to  eat." 

"  Is  it  possible  ?     Who  is  she  ? " 

"  She  was  a  lewd  woman,  but  now  nobody  wants  her, 
so  she  has  no  money  to  buy  anything  with.  The  land- 
lady has  been  pitying  her,  but  she  wants  to  drive  her  out 
now.     Agafya,  oh,  Agafya ! "  shouted  the  old  woman. 

51 


62  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

We  walked  up  to  the  bunk,  on  which  something  raised 
itself.  It  was  a  haK-gray,  dishevelled  woman,  as  lean  as 
a  skeleton,  in  nothing  but  a  dirty,  torn  shirt,  with  a  pecul- 
iarly beaming  and  arrested  glance.  She  looked  with  an 
arrested  glance  past  us,  with  her  lean  hand  caught  her 
sack  in  order  to  cover  her  bony  breast,  which  could  be 
seen  back  of  her  dirty  and  torn  shirt,  and  almost  barked 
out,  "  What  is  it  ?     What  is  it  ?  " 

I  asked  her  how  she  was  getting  along.  For  a  long 
time  she  could  not  understand  me ;  finally  she  said : 

"  I  do  not  know  myself,  —  they  are  driving  me  out." 

I  asked  her,  —  I  blush  to  write  it  down,  —  I  asked  her 
whether  it  was  true  that  she  had  not  eaten.  She  answered 
in  the  same  feverish  and  rapid  tone,  without  looking  at 
me : 

"  I  have  not  had  anything  to  eat  yesterday,  or  to-day." 

The  sight  of  this  woman  touched  me,  but  not  as  I  had 
been  touched  in  Lyapinski  House :  there  my  pity  for  the 
people  made  me  feel  ashamed  of  myself,  while  here  I  was 
glad  to  have  at  last  found  what  I  had  been  looking  for,  — 
a  hungry  person. 

I  gave  her  a  rouble,  and  I  remember  that  I  was  very 
glad  that  others  saw  it.  When  the  old  woman  noticed  it, 
she,  too,  asked  me  for  some  money.  It  gave  me  such 
pleasure  to  offer  money  that  I  gave  the  old  woman  some, 
without  considering  whether  it  was  right  to  give  her  any, 
or  not.  The  old  woman  saw  me  out  at  the  door,  and  the 
people  who  were  standing  in  the  corridor  heard  her  thank- 
ing me.  Apparently  the  questions  which  I  had  put  in 
respect  to  poverty  had  roused  some  expectations,  and 
several  persons  followed  us.  In  the  corridor  they  began 
to  ask  me  for  some  money.  There  were  among  the  sup- 
plicants some  who  were  evidently  confirmed  drunkards, 
who  roused  a  disagreeable  feeling  in  me ;  but,  having 
given  some  to  the  old  woman,  I  had  no  right  to  refuse 
these  either,  and  I  began  to  distribute  my  money.     While 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN  ?  53 

I  was  giving,  others  came  up,  and  in  every  quarter  there 
was  excitement.  People  appeared  on  the  staircases  and 
in  the  galleries,  and  they  followed  me. 

As  I  came  out  into  the  yard,  a  boy,  pushiag  his  way 
through  the  crowd,  came  flying  down  the  staircase.  He 
did  not  see  me,  and  he  shouted,  hurriedly,  "  He  gave 
Agafya  a  rouble."  Having  run  down-stairs,  the  boy 
joined  the  crowd  that  was  following  me.  I  went  out  into 
the  street;  all  kinds  of  people  followed  me,  begging  for 
money.  I  distributed  all  the  change  I  had,  and  went  iQto 
an  open  shop  to  ask  the  dealer  to  change  a  ten-rouble 
bill.  Here  the  same  happened  as  in  Lyapinski  House, 
namely,  there  was  a  terrible  crush.  Old  women,  people 
of  the  gentry,  peasants,  children,  crowded  at  the  shop, 
extending  their  hands ;  I  gave  them  money,  askiag  a  few 
about  their  lives,  and  making  note  of  them  in  my  memo- 
randum-book. The  dealer  turned  in  the  fur  corners  of 
the  collar  of  his  fur  coat  and  sat  like  an  idol,  now  and 
then  casting  a  glance  at  the  crowd  and  again  directing  his 
eyes  past  me.  Apparently  he  felt,  like  the  rest,  that  .it 
was  foohsh,  but  he  could  not  say  so. 

In  Lyapinski  House  I  had  been  horrified  by  the  wretch- 
edness and  the  humiliation  of  the  people,  and  I  felt 
myself  guilty :  I  felt  a  desire  and  a  possibihty  of  being 
better.  But  now,  a  similar  scene  produced  an  entirely 
different  effect  upon  me :  in  the  first  place,  I  experienced 
a  malevolent  feeling  toward  many  of  those  who  were 
besieging  me,  and,  in  the  second,  unrest  at  what  the  shop- 
keepers and  janitors  were  thinking  of  me. 

When  I  returned  home  on  that  day,  I  did  not  feel  at  my 
ease.  I  felt  that  what  I  had  done  was  foolish  and  immoral ; 
but,  as  always  happens  in  consequence  of  an  inner  confu- 
sion, I  talked  a  great  deal  about  my  undertaking,  as 
though  I  did  not  in  the  least  doubt  its  success. 

On  the  following  day  I  went  by  myself  to  those  persons 
noted  down  by  me,  who  seemed  to  me  more  miserable 


54  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN  ? 

than  the  rest,  and  whom,  I  thought,  it  was  easier  to  help. 
As  I  said,  I  did  not  help  even  one  of  those  persons.  It 
turned  out  that  it  was  much  harder  to  help  them  than  I 
had  thought.  Either  because  I  did  not  know  how,  or 
because  it  was  impossible  to  do  otherwise,  I  only  irritated 
the  people,  without  helping  them.  Before  the  end  of  the 
census-taking  I  visited  Ezhdnov  House  several  times,  and 
each  time  the  same  thing  happened :  I  was  surrounded 
by  a  crowd  of  begging  people,  in  the  mass  of  whom  I  was 
completely  lost.  I  felt  the  impossibihty  of  doing  any- 
thing, because  there  were  too  many  of  them,  and  so  I  felt 
an  ill-will  toward  them,  because  there  were  so  many  of 
them  ;  besides,  each  of  them  individually  did  not  gain  my 
favour. 

I  felt  that  each  of  them  was  telling  me  an  untruth  or 
not  the  whole  truth,  and  saw  in  me  only  a  purse  from 
which  one  could  draw  money.  Very  frequently  it  seemed 
to  me  that  the  very  money  which  one  of  them  extorted 
from  me  would  not  improve  his  situation,  but  would  make 
it  worse.  The  more  frequently  I  went  to  these  houses, 
the  more  I  had  intercourse  with  those  people,  the  more 
manifest  did  it  become  to  me  that  it  was  impossible  to  do 
anything ;  but  I  did  not  recede  from  my  set  purpose  till 
the  last  nightly  round  of  the  census. 

I  feel  particularly  ashamed  to  recall  this  last  day's 
round.  Before  that  I  used  to  go  alone,  while  now  we 
went  twenty  of  us  together.  At  seven  o'clock  there 
gathered  at  my  house  all  those  who  wanted  to  go  with 
me  on  this  last  night's  round.  They  were  mostly  stran- 
gers, —  students,  an  officer,  and  two  of  my  society  acquaint- 
ances, who,  saying  the  customary  **  C'est  tres  intSressant  !  " 
begged  me  to  receive  them  among  the  number  of  census- 
takers. 

My  society  acquaintances  dressed  themselves  in  pe- 
culiar hunting- jackets  and  high  travelling-boots,  —  a  cos- 
tume which  they  put  on  when  they  went  out  hunting, 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  55 

and  which,  in  their  opinion,  was  proper  for  a  visit  to  the 
lodging-houses.  They  took  with  them  peculiar  hooks  and 
outlandish  pencils.  They  were  in  that  peculiar  state  of 
excitement  in  which  people  are  who  are  getting  ready  for 
the  chase,  for  a  duel,  or  for  the  war.  From  them  could 
most  clearly  be  seen  the  insipidity  and  falseness  of  our 
situation,  but  the  rest  of  us  were  in  the  same  false  con- 
dition. 

Before  our  start  we  had  a  consultation,  something  like 
a  military  council,  as  to  how  we  should  begin,  how  dis- 
tribute ourselves,  etc.  The  consultation  was  precisely 
like  what  takes  place  in  councils,  assembhes,  and  com- 
mittees, that  is,  everybody  spoke,  not  because  they  had 
anything  to  say,  but  because  they  invented  something  to 
say,  in  order  not  to  fall  behind  the  rest.  In  the  course 
of  these  discussions  nobody  mentioned  anything  about 
philanthropy,  of  which  I  had  spoken  so  frequently. 
Though  I  was  ashamed  to  do  so,  I  felt  that  it  was  neces- 
sary to  make  mention  of  the  philanthropic  work,  that 
is,  of  the  taking  note,  during  our  round,  of  all  those  who 
were  in  wretched  circumstances.  I  always  felt  ill  at  ease 
whenever  I  spoke  of  this,  but  here,  amidst  our  excited 
preparation  for  the  expedition,  I  had  the  greatest  difficulty 
in  speaking  about  it.  They  listened  to  me,  as  I  thought, 
with  melancholy,  and  all  agreed  with  me  verbally ;  but  it 
was  evident  that  all  knew  that  it  was  foolish,  and  that 
nothing  would  come  of  it,  and  they  all  began  at  once  to 
speak  of  something  else.  This  lasted  till  the  time  when 
we  had  to  go,  and  we  started. 

We  arrived  at  the  dark  restaurant,  where  we  roused 
the  waiters  and  began  to  unpack  our  note-books.  When 
we  were  told  that  the  people  had  heard  of  our  visit  and 
were  leaving  the  quarters,  we  asked  the  landlord  to  shut  the 
gates,  and  we  went  ourselves  into  the  yard  to  talk  to 
the  people  who  were  trying  to  get  away  and  to  assure 
them  that  no  one  would  ask  for  their  police  cards.     I 


56  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN? 

remember  the  strange  and  oppressive  feeling  produced  on 
me  by  those  excited  lodgers :  haK-undressed  and  ragged, 
they  appeared  to  me  tall  in  the  lamplight  of  the  dark 
yard ,  frightened  and  terrible  in  their  fright,  they  stood 
in  a  crowd  about  the  malodorous  privy,  listening  to  our 
assurances,  but  not  believing  them ;  they  were  evidently 
prepared  for  anything,  like  baited  beasts,  if  only  they 
could  get  away  from  us. 

Gentlemen  of  every  description  —  as  policemen  and  as 
gendarmes,  and  as  examining  magistrates,  and  as  judges 
—  had  been  harassing  them  all  their  lives,  in  the  cities 
and  in  the  villages,  on  the  roads  and  in  the  streets,  in  the 
restaurants  and  in  the  doss-houses,  —  and  now  these  gen- 
tlemen suddenly  came  and  shut  the  gates  on  them,  merely 
to  count  them ;  that  was  as  hard  for  them  to  believe  as 
it  would  be  for  hares  to  believe  that  the  dogs  came  to 
count  them,  and  not  to  hunt  them.  But  the  gates  were 
locked  and  the  excited  lodgers  went  to  their  quarters,  and 
we,  dividing  into  groups,  started  on  our  round. 

I  had  the  two  society  gentlemen  and  two  students  with 
me.  In  front  of  us,  in  the  darkness,  walked  V^nya,  in  an 
overcoat  and  his  white  trousers,  and  with  a  lantern  in  his 
hand,  and  we  followed  him.  We  went  to  the  quarters 
with  which  I  was  acquainted.  The  rooms  were  familiar 
to  me  and  so  were  some  of  the  people,  but  the  majority 
of  the  people  were  new  to  me,  and  the  spectacle  was  new 
and  terrible,  much  more  terrible  than  what  I  had  seen 
near  Lyapinski  House.  All  the  quarters  were  full,  all  the! 
cots  were  occupied,  generally  by  two  people.  The  specta-l 
cle  was  terrible  on  account  of  the  crowded  condition  and 
of  the  intermingling  of  men  and  women.  All  women  who 
were  not  beastly  drunk  were  sleeping  with  men.  Many 
women  with  children  on  narrow  cots  were  sleeping  with 
strange  men.  Terrible  was  the  spectacle  of  the  wretched- 
ness, dirt,  raggedness,  and  fright  of  these  people ;  and, 
above  all,  terrible  on  account  of  the  enormous  number  of 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  57 

people  who  were  in  this  condition.  There  was  one  apart- 
ment, and  another,  and  a  third,  and  a  tenth,  and  a  twen- 
tieth, and  there  was  no  end  to  them.  Everywhere  the 
same  stench,  the  same  stifling  atmosphere,  the  same 
crowding,  the  same  mingling  of  the  sexes,  the  same  deliri- 
ously drunken  men  and  women,  and  the  same  fright,  hu- 
mility, and  guilt  on  all  the  faces,  —  and  I  again  felt  ill  at 
ease  and  pained,  as  in  Lyapinski  House,  and  I  understood 
that  what  I  had  undertaken  was  nasty,  stupid,  and,  there- 
fore, impossible.  I  stopped  taking  down  notes  and  ques- 
tioning people,  for  I  knew  that  nothing  would  come^of  it. 
I  was  dreadfully  oppressed.  In  Lyapinski  House  I  had 
been  like  a  man  who  suddenly  sees  a  sore  on  another  man's 
body.  He  is  sorry  for  the  man,  sorry  because  he  did  not 
pity  him  before,  and  he  still  may  hope  to  be  able  to  help 
the  ailing  man.  But  now  I  was  like  a  physician  who 
comes  with  his  medicaments  to  the  patient,  lays  open  his 
sore,  probes  it,  and  must  confess  to  himself  that  he  has 
done  all  that  in  vain,  that  his  medicaments  are  no  good. 


XI. 

This  visit  inflicted  the  last  blow  to  my  self-deception. 
It  became  patent  to  me  that  my  undertaking  was  not 
only  stupid,  but  also  abominable.  But,  although  1  knew 
this,  it  seemed  to  me  that  1  could  not  all  at  once  throw 
up  the  whole  matter :  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  to  con- 
tinue this  occupation,  in  the  first  place,  because  with  my 
article,  my  visits,  and  my  promises  I  had  roused  the  ex- 
pectations of  the  poor,  in  the  second  place,  because  with 
the  same  article  and  with  my  conversations  I  had  roused 
the  sympathy  of  the  benefactors,  many  of  whom  had 
promised  to  me  their  cooperation,  both  by  personal  serv- 
ice and  by  money  contributions.  I  waited  for  both  sides 
to  turn  to  me  with  their  requests,  which  I  should  have  to 
answer  the  best  way  I  knew  how. 

As  to  the  applications  of  the  needy,  this  is  what  took 
place  :  I  received  more  than  one  hundred  letters  and  appli- 
cations ;  these  applications  were  all  from  the  rich  poor,  if  I 
may  express  myself  in  this  fashion.  On  some  of  these  I 
called,  some  I  left  without  a  reply.  Nowhere  did  I  suc- 
ceed in  doing  anything.  AU  the  appHcations  to  me  were 
from  persons  who  had  once  been  in  a  privileged  condition 
(I  call  thus  the  condition  in  which  people  receive  more 
from  others  than  they  give),  who  had  lost  it,  and  now 
wanted  to  go  back  to  it.  One  needed  two  hundred  roubles 
in  order  to  bolster  up  his  declining  trade  and  finish  the 
education  of  his  children;  another  needed  a  photograph- 
gallery  ;  a  third  wanted  to  pay  debts  and  redeem  his 
decent  clothes ;  a  fourth  needed  a  piano,  in  order  to 
perfect   himself   in  playing  and  support  his  family  by 

68 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  69 

giving  music  lessons.  The  majority  did  not  determine 
the  exact  sum  and  simply  asked  for  assistance ;  but, 
whenever  I  investigated  their  demands,  it  turned  out  that 
these  demands  grev^  in  proportion  with  the  assistance,  and 
they  were  not  satisfied,  and  could  not  be.  I  repeat,  it  is 
very  likely  that  all  that  was  due  to  the  fact  that  I  did  not 
know  how ;  in  any  case,  I  did  not  help  any  one,  although 
I  sometimes  tried  to  do  so. 

As  to  the  cooperation  on  the  part  of  the  benefactors, 
something  very  strange  and  unexpected  took  place.  Of 
all  the  persons  who  had  promised  me  monetary  contribu- 
tions and  had  even  determined  the  sums,  not  one  handed 
me  as  much  as  a  rouble  to  distribute  to  the  poor.  To 
judge  by  the  promises  which  they  had  made  me,  I  could 
count  on  something  like  three  thousand  roubles,  and  of 
all  these  men  not  one  recalled  the  former  conversations 
or  gave  me  a  single  kopek.  The  only  persons  who  gave 
me  anything  were  the  students  who  turned  over  to  me 
the  money  which  they  received  for  their  work  in  taking 
the  census,  which  was,  I  believe,  twelve  roubles.  Thus 
my  whole  undertaking,  which  was  to  have  been  expressed 
in  tens  of  thousands  of  roubles  contributed  by  the  rich, 
and  in  hundreds  and  thousands  of  people  who  were  to  be 
saved  from  wretchedness  and  debauch,  reduced  itself  to 
this,  that  I  distributed  at  haphazard  a  few  tens  of  roubles 
to  those  men  who  extorted  it  from  me,  and  that  I  had  on 
my  hands  twelve  roubles  contributed  by  the  students,  and 
twenty-five  roubles  sent  to  me  by  the  City  Council  for  my 
work  as  superintendent,  which  sums  I  was  at  a  loss  to 
dispose  of. 

The  whole  affair  came  to  an  end.  And  so,  before  my 
departure  to  the  country,  I  went  one  Sunday  morning, 
about  Butter- week,  to  Ezhdnov  House,  in  order  to  get  rid 
of  the  thirty-seven  roubles  before  my  departure,  and  to 
distribute  them  to  the  poor.  I  made  the  round  of  the 
familiar  quarters,  and  there  found  one  sick  man  to  whom 


60  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

I  gave  five  roubles,  I  think.  There  was  no  one  else  to 
give  any  money  to.  But,  as  I  had  not  known  them  in 
the  beginning,  so  I  did  not  know  them  then,  and  so  I 
decided  to  take  counsel  with  Ivan  Fedotych,  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  restaurant,  to  know  to  whom  I  should  give 
the  remaining  thirty-two  roubles. 

It  was  the  first  day  of  Butter-week.  All  were  dressed 
up  and  had  plenty  to  eat,  and  many  were  already  drunk. 
In  the  yard,  near  the  corner  of  the  house,  stood  an  old, 
but  still  hale,  ragpicker,  in  a  torn  gabardine  and  bast 
shoes ;  picking  over  his  booty  in  a  basket,  he  threw  out 
into  heaps  scraps  of  leather  and  of  iron  and  of  something 
else,  and  sang  a  merry  song  in  a  beautiful  and  powerful 
voice.  I  got  into  a  conversation  with  him.  He  was 
seventy  years  old  and  all  alone ;  he  made  a  hving  by  his 
occupation  as  a  ragpicker,  and  not  only  did  not  complain, 
but  even  said  that  he  had  enough  to  eat  and  to  get  drunk 
on.  I  asked  him  about  those  who  were  most  in  need. 
He  grew  angry  and  said  outright  that  there  were  no 
needy  persons,  except  drunkards  and  lazybones  ;  but  when 
he  heard  of  my  purpose,  he  asked  me  for  a  nickel  with 
which  to  get  him  a  drink,  and  ran  into  the  restaurant.  I 
went  myself  into  the  restaurant  to  Ivdn  Feddtych,  in 
order  to  give  him  what  money  I  had  left  for  distribution. 

The  restaurant  was  full ;  dressed  up  girls  swarmed  from 
door  to  door ;  all  the  tables  were  occupied ;  there  was 
already  a  large  number  of  drunken  persons,  and  in  a 
small  room  some  one  was  playing  the  accordion,  and  two 
were  dancing.  Out  of  respect  for  me  Ivdn  Fed6tych 
ordered  the  dance  stopped,  and  sat  down  with  me  at  an 
unoccupied  table.  I  told  him  that,  since  he  knew  his 
lodgers,  he  might  be  able  to  point  out  to  me  those  who 
were  most  in  need,  as  I  had  been  ordered  to  distribute 
a  small  sum  of  money.  Good-natured  Ivdn  Fed(5tych 
(he  died  a  year  later),  though  busy  attending  to  his  trade, 
stayed  away  from  it  for  awhile,  in  order  to  aid  me.     He 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  61 

fell  to  musing,  and  was  apparently  perplexed.  An  elderly 
waiter  had  heard  us  speak,  and  took  part  in  the  consulta- 
tion. 

They  began  to  pass  in  review  a  number  of  persons, 
some  of  whom  I  knew  myself,  and  we  could  not  come  to 
an  understanding. 

"  Paramonovna,"  the  waiter  proposed. 

"  Yes,  that  is  so.  Goes  often  without  food.  Well,  she 
does  have  sprees." 

"  What  of  it  ?     Still." 

"  Well,  Spiridon  Ivanovich,  —  has  children.    That's  it." 

But  Ivan  Fedotych  had  some  objection  to  Spiridon 
Ivanovich. 

"Akulina?  She  receives  money.  Well,  how  about 
the  blind  man?" 

To  this  one  I  myself  objected.  I  had  just  seen  him. 
He  was  an  old  man  of  eighty  years  of  age  and  blind, 
without  kith  or  kin.  One  would  imagine  that  there  could 
not  be  a  harder  lot  than  his ;  but  I  had  seen  him  just 
awhile  ago :  he  was  lying  on  a  high  feather  bed,  drunk, 
and,  as  he  did  not  see  me,  discharged  the  vilest  of 
words  in  a  terrible  bass  against  his  comparatively  young 
mate. 

Then  they  mentioned  an  armless  boy  and  his  mother. 
I  saw  that  Ivan  Fedotych  was  embarrassed,  on  account  of 
his  honesty,  for  he  knew  that,  no  matter  what  should 
be  given,  it  would  all  come  to  him  in  his  restaurant.  But 
I  had  to  get  rid  of  the  thirty-two  roubles,  and  so  I  in- 
sisted, and,  by  making  compromises,  we  managed  to  dis- 
tribute the  money.  Those  who  received  it  were  generally 
well  dressed,  and  it  was  not.  necessary  to  go  far  for  them, 
for  they  were  all  there,  in  the  restaurant.  The  armless 
boy  came  in  extensible  boots,  a  red  shirt,  and  a  vest. 

Thus  ended  my  whole  philanthropic  activity,  and  I  went 
back  to  the  village,  irritated  at  others,  as  is  nearly  always 
the  case  when  I  have  committed  some  foolish  and  bad 


62  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

act.  My  philanthropy  was  reduced  to  zero  and  came  to 
a  complete  stop,  but  the  train  of  thought  and  of  feelings 
which  it  had  evoked  in  me  did  not  come  to  a  stop :  my 
inner  work  proceeded  with  redoubled  force. 


xn. 

What,  then,  had  happened  ? 

I  had  lived  in  the  country,  and  there  had  had  relations 
with  the  village  poor.  Not  out  of  humility,  which  is 
worse  than  pride,  but  in  order  to  tell  the  truth,  which 
is  necessary  for  the  comprehension  of  the  whole  train  of 
my  thought  and  feelings,  I  will  say  that  in  the  country 
I  had  done  very  little  for  the  poor;  but  the  demands 
made  on  me  were  so  modest,  that  even  this  little  was 
useful  to  men  and  created  around  me  an  atmosphere  of 
love  and  union  with  the  people,  in  which  it  was  possible 
for  me  to  calm  the  gnawing  feeling  of  the  consciousness 
of  the  illegality  of  my  life.  When  I  moved  to  the  city  I 
expected  to  Hve  in  the  same  manner.  But  here  I  came 
across  want  of  an  entirely  different  description. 

The  city  want  was  less  genuine,  and  more  exacting, 
and  more  cruel  than  the  village  want.  Above  all,  there 
was  so  much  of  it  in  one  place  that  it  produced  a  terrible 
impression  on  me.  The  impression  which  I  received  in 
Lyapinski  House  in  the  first  moment  made  me  feel  the 
monstrousness  of  my  life.  This  sentiment  was  sincere 
and  very  strong.  But,  in  spite  of  its  sincerity  and 
strength,  I  was  at  first  so  weak  as  to  get  frightened  at 
the  transformation  of  my  life,  to  which  this  sentiment 
called  me,  and  was  so  ready  for  compromises,  I  believed 
that  which  everybody  was  telhng  me,  and  which  every- 
body has  been  saying  since  the  creation  of  the  world, 
namely,  that  there  was  nothing  bad  in  wealth  and  luxury  ; 
that  it  was  given  by  God ;  that  it  was  possible  to  aid  the 

63 


64  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

needy  and  yet  continue  to  live  in  wealth.  I  believed  it 
and  wanted  to  act  accordingly. 

I  wrote  an  article  in  which  I  appealed  to  all  the  rich 
people  to  offer  their  assistance.  All  the  rich  people 
acknowledged  themselves  morally  obhged  to  agree  with 
me,  but  evidently  either  did  not  wish,  or  were  unable  to 
do  or  give  anything  for  the  poor.  I  began  to  visit  the 
poor,  and  I  beheld  there  what  I  had  never  expected  to  see. 
On  the  one  hand,  I  saw  in  these  dens,  as  I  called  them, 
people  whom  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  assist,  because 
they  were  labouring  people,  who  were  used  to  work  and  to 
privations,  and  so  stood  incomparably  higher  than  I  in  life ; 
on  the  other  hand,  I  saw  unfortunates  whom  I  could  not 
assist,  because  they  were  the  same  kind  of  men  that  I 
myself  am.  The  majority  of  the  unfortunates  whom 
I  saw  were  unfortunate  only  because  they  had  lost  the 
ability,  the  desire,  and  the  habit  of  earning  their  bread, 
that  is,  their  misfortune  consisted  in  being  precisely  such 
as  I  am. 

Of  unfortunates  who  could  be  aided  at  once,  —  sick, 
freezing,  hungry  people,  —  I  did  not  find  a  single  person 
but  starving  Agdfya.  I  convinced  myself  that,  with  my 
aloofness  from  the  lives  of  the  people  whom  I  wished  to 
aid,  it  wsifr  almost  impossible  for  me  to  find  such  unfortunate 
people,  because  every  true  need  was  always  met  by  those 
very  people  among  whom  these  unfortunates  lived  ;  and, 
above  all  else,  I  was  convinced  that  I  was  not  able  with 
money  to  change  that  unfortunate  hfe  which  these  people 
led.  I  was  convinced  of  all  that,  but  from  a  false  shame 
I  did  not  throw  up  my  undertaking  and,  deceiving  my- 
self with  my  own  virtue,  I  continued  the  matter  for  quite 
awhile,  until  it  reduced  itself  to  zero,  until  I  with  great 
difficulty,  and  with  the  aid  of  Ivdn  Feddtych,  in  the 
restaurant  of  Rzh^nov  House,  got  rid  of  the  thirty-seven 
roubles  which  I  did  not  consider  my  own. 

Of  course  I  might  have  continued  this  business  and 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  65 

made  of  it  a  semblance  of  philanthropy ;  I  might  have 
pushed  t]ie  people  who  had  promised  me  the  money  to 
give  it  to  me;  might  have  collected  more;  might  have 
distributed  the  money  and  consoled  myself  with  my 
virtue ;  but  I  ,saw,  on  the  one  hand,  that  we  rich  people 
did  not  wish  and  were  unable  to  apportion  to  the  poor  a 
part  of  our  abund^ance  (we  have  so  many  needs  of  our 
own),  and  that  there  was  no  one  to  give  the  money  to, 
Ai  we  indeed  wished  to  do  good  to  people,  and  not  merely 
to  distribute  money  at  haphazard,  as  I  had  done  in  the 
Ezhanov  restaurant.  So  I  abandoned  the  whole  business, 
and  with  despair  in  my  heart  returned  to  the  country. 

In  the  country  I  wanted  to  write  an  article  about 
everything  I  had  experienced,  and  to  tell  why  my  under- 
taking had  been  a  failure.  I  wanted  also  to  justify 
myself  in  regard  to  the  rebukes  which  were  heaped  upon 
me  on  account  of  my  article  on  the  census ;  I  wanted  to 
arraign  society  for  its  indifference  and  to  point  out  the 
causes  which  bred  this  urban  poverty,  and  the  necessity 
of  counteracting  it  and  the  means  which  I  saw  must  be 
adopted  to  do  so. 

I  immediately  began  writing  my  article,  and  it  seemed 
to  me  that  I  should  say  some  important  things  in  it. 
But,  no  matter  how  much  I  struggled  with  it,  no  matter 
how  abundant  the  material  was,  the  excitement,  under 
the  influence  of  which  I  wrote,  and  because  I  had  not  yet 
sufficiently  emerged  from  the  impression  produced  by  it 
to  be  able  to  treat  it  in  a  direct  manner,  and,  above  all, 
because  I  did  not  yet  simply  and  clearly  recognize  the 
cause  of  it  all,  a  very  simple  cause,  which  had  its  root 
in  me,  —  I  was  unable  to  make  headway  with  the  article 
and  so  did  not  finish  it  until  the  present  year. 

In  the  moral  sphere  there  takes  place  a  very  remark- 
able, but  little  observed  phenomenon. 

If  I  tell  a  man,  who  does  not  know  it,  anything  I  know 
from   geology,  astronomy,  history,  physics,  mathematics, 


66  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

he  will  acquire  some  new  information  and  will  n^ver  say, 
"  What  is  there  about  it  that  is  new  ?  Everybody  knows 
that,  and  I  have  known  it  for  quite  awhile ; "  but  impart 
to  a  man  the  highest  moral  truth,  which  is  expressed  in 
the  clearest,  most  compact  manner,  as  it  has  never  been 
expressed  before,  and  the  average  man,  especially  if  he  is 
not  interested  in  these  moral  questions,  or,  more  espe- 
cially, if  the  moral  truth  which  you  utter  strokes  his  fur 
the  wrong  way,  vdll  be  certain  to  say,  "  Who  does  not 
know  this  ?  This  is  an  old  story  and  has  been  said  long 
ago."  It  actually  seems  to  him  that  it  was  said  long  ago 
and  in  precisely  this  form.  Only  those  who  value  and 
esteem  the  moral  truths  know  how  precious  and  valuable 
they  are  and  by  what  long  labour  one  obtains  the  simpli- 
fication and  elucidation  of  a  moral  truth,  —  its  transition 
from  a  hazy,  indefinitely  conceived  supposition  and  wish, 
from  indefinite,  incoherent  expressions,  to  a  firm  and  defi- 
nite expression,  which  inevitably  demands  corresponding 
actions.  We  are  all  of  us  accustomed  to  think  that  moral 
teaching  is  a  very  base  and  tiresome  thing,  in  which  there 
can  be  nothing  new  or  interesting,  whereas  the  whole  of 
human  life,  with  all  its  complex  and  varied  activities, 
which  seem  to  be  independent  of  morality,  in  the  fields 
of  politics,  science,  art,  has  no  other  purpose  than  a 
greater  and  ever  greater  elucidation,  confirmation,  simpli- 
fication, and  accessibility  of  moral  truths. 

I  remember  one  day  I  walked  down  a  street  in  Mos- 
cow, and  saw  a  man  coming  out  of  a  shop  and  carefully 
scanning  the  stones  of  the  sidewalk ;  then  he  selected 
one  of  them,  sat  down  on  it,  and  began  (as  I  thought) 
to  chip  it  off  or  rub  it  with  the  greatest  tension  and 
effort. 

"  What  is  he  doing  to  the  sidewalk  ? "  I  thought. 
When  I  walked  up  close  to  him,  I  saw  what  the  man 
was  doing ;  he  was  a  fellow  from  a  butcher  shop ;  he  was 
whetting  his  knife  against  the  stones  of  the  sidewalk. 


WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO    THEN?  67 

He  had  not  been  thinking  of  the  stones  at  all  when  he 
looked  at  them,  and  still  less  was  he  thinking  of  them 
while  doing  his  work,  —  he  was  simply  whetting  his 
knife.  He  had  to  sharpen  his  knife  to  cut  meat  with  it ; 
and  there  I  thought  that  he  was  busy  doing  something  to 
the  stones. 

Even  so  it  only  seems  that  humanity  is  busy  with 
commerce,  treaties,  wars,  sciences,  arts ;  but  there  is  only 
one  work  which  is  of  importance  to  humanity,  and  which 
it  does :  it  is  explaining  to  itself  the  moral  laws  by 
which  it  lives.  The  moral  laws  have  existed  before,  and 
humanity  only  elucidates  them  to  itself,  and  this  elucida- 
tion seems  unimportant  and  iusignificant  to  him  who  does 
not  need  the  moraMaw,  who  does  not  want  to  live  by  it. 
But  this  elucidation  of  the  moral  law  is  not  only  the 
chief,  but  also  the  only  work  of  the  whole  of  humanity. 
This  elucidation  is  as  unnoticeable  as  the  distinction 
between  a  dull  and  a  sharp  knife.  The  knife  is  a  knife, 
and  for  him  who  does  not  have  to  cut  with  this  knife  the 
distinction  between  a  dull  and  a  sharp  knife  is  not  notice- 
able. But  for  him  who  has  comprehended  that  his  whole 
life  depends  on  a  more  or  less  dull  or  sharp  knife,  every 
whetting  of  it  is  of  importance,  and  he  knows  that  there 
is  no  end  to  this  sharpeniag,  and  that  a  knife  is  a  knife 
only  when  it  is  sharp,  when  it  cuts  what  it  is  necessary 
to  cut. 

This  happened  with  me  when  I  began  to  write  the 
article.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  knew  everything,  com- 
prehended everything  in  respect  to  those  questions  which 
the  impression  of  Lyapinski  House  and  of  the  census  had 
evoked  in  me ;  but  when  I  attempted  to  make  them  clear 
to  myself  and  to  expound  them,  it  turned  out  that  the 
knife  would  not  cut,  that  it  was  necessary  to  sharpen  it. 
Only  now,  after  three  years,  did  I  feel  that  my  knife  was 
sufficiently  sharpened  to  let  me  cut  what  I  wanted.  I 
had  learned  little  that  was  new.     All  my  thoughts  are 


68  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

the  same,  but  they  were  duller,  dispersed  easily,  and  did 
not  harmonize ;  there  was  no  sting  in  them  ;  they  did  not 
reduce  themselves  to  the  simplest  and  clearest  resolve,  as 
they  do  now. 


XIII. 

I  EEMEMBEK  how  during  the  whole  time  of  my  unsuc- 
cessful experiment  in  aiding  the  unfortunate  city  dwellers 
I  felt  like  a  man  who  wants  to  pull  another  out  of 
the  mire,  while  he  himself  is  standing  on  boggy  ground. 
Every  effort  of  mine  made  me  feel  the  insecurity  of  the 
soil  on  which  I  was  standing.  I  felt  that  I  was  myself 
in  the  bog ;  but  that  consciousness  did  not  cause  me  then 
to  look  more  closely  underneath  me,  in  order  that  I 
might  find  out  what  I  was  standing  on;  I  kept  all  the 
time  looking  for  an  external  means  for  succouring  the 
evil  which  was  outside  of  me. 

I  then  felt  that  my  life  was  bad  and  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  live  so.  But  from  the  fact  that  my  Hfe  was 
bad  and  that  it  was  impossible  to  live  so,  I  did  not  de- 
duce the  very  simple  and  clear  conclusion  that  it  was 
necessary  to  improve  my  own  life  and .  live  better,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  drew  the '  strange  conclusion  that  it  was 
necessary  to  correct  the  lives  of  others  in  order  that  I 
might  be  able  to  live  better,  —  and  so  I  began  to  correct 
the  lives  of  others.  I  lived  in  the  city  and  wanted  to 
improve  the  lives  of  those  who  lived  in  the  city,  but  I 
soon  convinced  myself  that  I  could  not  do  it  at  all,  and 
began  to  think  about  the  peculiarities  of  city  life  and  city 
poverty. 

"What  is  this  city  life  and  this  city  poverty?  Why 
could  I  not,  while  living  in  the  city,  help  the  city  poor  ? " 
I  asked  myself.  And  I  answered  myself  that  I  was  un- 
able to  do  anything  for  them,  in  the  first  place,  because 
there  were  too  many  of  them  in  one  spot ;  in  the  second 


70  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO   THEN? 

place,  because  all  these  poor  were  quite  different  from  the 
village  poor.  Why  were  there  so  many  of  them  here,  and 
in  what  did  they  differ  from  the  village  poor  ?  There 
was  one  answer  to  both  these  questions.  There  were 
many  of  them  here,  because  all  those  who  have  nothing 
to  live  on  in  the  country  gather  here  around  the  rich,  and 
their  peculiarity  consists  in  this,  that  they  are  all  people 
who  have  left  the  country  in  order  to  find  a  living  in  the 
city  (if  there  are  city  poor  who  are  bom  here,  and  whose 
fathers  and  grandfathers  were  born  here,  these  fathers  and 
grandfathers  had  come  to  the  city  to  make  a  living). 

What  is  meant  by  the  expression  "  to  make  a  living  in  the 
city  "  ?  In  the  words  "  to  make  a  living  in  the  city  "  there 
is  something  strange,  something  resembling  a  jest,  when 
you  come  to  think  of  it.  What  ?  Away  from  the  coun- 
try, that  is,  away  from  the  places  where  there  are  forests, 
and  fields,  and  giain,  and  cattle,  —  where  the  whole 
wealth  of  the  land  is,  —  do  these  people  go  to  make  a  liv- 
ing in  a  place  where  there  are  no  trees,  nor  gi-ass,  nor  even 
soil,  but  only  stones  and  dust  ?  What,  then,  is  meant  by 
the  words  "  to  make  a  living  in  the  city,"  which  are  so 
constantly  employed  by  those  who  make  a  living  and 
by  those  who  feed  them,  as  something  quite  clear  and 
comprehensible  ? 

I  remember  all  the  hundreds  and  thousands  of  city 
people,  —  both  those  who  live  well  and  those  who  are  in 
need,  —  with  whom  I  spoke  about  their  coming  thither, 
and  all  without  exception  told  me  that  they  came  here 
from  the  country  to  make  a  living ;  that  Moscow  neither 
sows  nor  reaps,  but  has  wealth  in  heaps ;  that  there  was 
plenty  of  everything  in  Moscow  and  that,  therefore,  they 
could  only  in  Moscow  gain  the  money  which  they  needed 
in  the  country  for  bread,  fot*  their  home,  for  a  horse,  for 
objects  of  prime  importance.  But  the  source  of  all  wealth 
is  in  the  country,  —  only  there  is  the  true  wealth  to  be 
found,  —  bread,  and  the  forest,  and  horses,  and  everything 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  71 

else.  Why,  then,  go  to  the  city  in  order  to  obtain  what 
there  is  in  the  country  ?  And  why,  above  all  else,  carry 
from  the  country  to  the  city  what  the  villagers  need,  — 
flour,  oats,  horses,  cattle  ? 

I  have  spoken  hundreds  of  times  about  it  with  peasants 
living  in  the  city,  and  it  became  clear  to  me,  from  my 
conversations  with  them  and  from  my  observations,  that 
the  crowding  of  the  country  population  in  the  cities  was 
partly  necessary,  because  they  cannot  otherwise  earn  a 
livelihood,  and  partly  voluntary,  and  that  the  temptations 
of  the  city  attract  them  thither.  It  is  true  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  peasant  is  such  that,  in  order  to  satisfy  the 
demands  which  are  made  on  him  in  the  village,  he  cannot 
get  along  in  any  other  way  than  by  selling  the  grain  and 
the  cattle  which,  he  knows,  he  will  need,  and  so  he  is 
compelled  against  his  will  to  go  to  the  city  in  order 
to  redeem  his  grain.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  compara- 
tively easier  earnings  and  the  luxury  of  life  in  the  city 
attract  him  thither,  and  that,  under  the  guise  of  making 
a  living  in  the  city,  he  goes  there,  in  order  to  work  less 
laboriously  and  eat  better,  to  drink  tea  three  times  a  day, 
to  play  the  dandy,  and  even  to  get  drunk  and  live  a 
riotous  life. 

The  cause  of  both  is  one  and  the  same :  the  passing  of 
the  wealth  of  the  producers  into  the  hands  of  the  non- 
producers  and  the  accumulation  of  the  wealth  in  the  cities. 
Indeed,  the  autumn  comes,  and  all  the  wealth  is  hoarded 
in  the  village ;  immediately  there  present  themselves  the 
demands  of  taxation,  of  military  service,  of  rentals; 
immediately  there  are  put  forth  the  temptations  of  vodka, 
weddings,  holidays,  petty  traders,  who  travel  from  village 
to  village,  and  of  many  other  things  ;  and  in  one  way  or 
another  all  this  wealth  in  the  most  varied  forms  — r  sheep, 
calves,  cows,  horses,  pigs,  chickens,  eggs,  butter,  hemp, 
flax,  rye,  oats,  buckwheat,  peas,  hemp  and  flax  seeds  — 
passes  into  the  hands  of  strangers  and  is  transferred  to  the 


72  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

cities,  and  from  the  cities  to  the  capitals.  The  villager 
is  compelled  to  give  it  all  up  in  order  to  satisfy  the  demands 
made  on  him  and  the  temptations  that  entice  him,  and, 
having  given  up  all  his  wealth,  he  is  left  in  arrears ;  he 
is  compelled  to  go  to  where  his  wealth  has  been  taken, 
and  there  he  partly  tries  to  recoup  the  money  which  he 
needs  for  his  most  wants  in  the  country,  and  partly,  being 
carried  away  by  the  temptations  of  the  city,  enjoys,  with 
others,  the  accumulated  wealth. 

Everywhere,  in  the  whole  of  Kussia,  and,  I  think,  not 
only  in  Eussia,  but  in  the  whole  world  as  well,  the  same 
thing  takes  place.  The  wealth  of  the  country  population 
passes  into  the  hands  of  traders,  landowners,  officials, 
manufacturers,  and  the  men  who  have  acquired  this  wealth 
want  to  enjoy  it ;  but  it  is  only  in  the  cities  that  they  can 
fully  enjoy  it.  In  the  country  it  is,  in  the  first  place, 
impossible,  on  account  of  the  thinness  of  the  population, 
to  find  a  gratification  for  all  the  wants  of  rich  people : 
they  miss  all  kinds  of  shops,  banks,  restaurants,  the- 
atres, and  all  kinds  of  social  amusements.  In  the  second 
place,  one  of  the  chief  enjoyments  furnished  by  wealth  — 
vanity,  the  desire  to  startle  and  outdo  others  —  can  again, 
on  account  of  the  thinness  of  the  population,  be  with 
difficulty  gratified  in  the  country.  In  the  country  there 
are  no  connoisseurs  of  luxury,  and  there  is  nobody  to 
startle.  No  matter  what  adornments  of  the  house, 
what  pictures,  bronzes,  carriages,  and  toilets  the  country 
dweller  may  provide  himself  with,  there  is  no  one  to  look 
at  them  and  envy  him,  for  the  peasants  have  no  under- 
standing about  this  whole  matter.  In  the  third  place, 
luxury  is  even  disagreeable  and  dangerous  in  the  country 
for  a  man  who  has  a  conscience  and  fear.  It  is  awkward 
and  troublesome  to  take  milk  baths  in  the  country  and  to 
feed  puppies  on  milk,  when  the  children  near  by  have  none  ; 
it  is  awkward  and  troublesome  to  build  pavilions  and  set 
out  gardens  among  people  who  live  in  cabins  which  are 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  73 

surrounded  by  manure,  and  cannot  be  heated  for  want  of 
wood.  In  the  village  there  is  no  one  to  keep  in  restraint 
the  stupid  peasants  who  in  their  ignorance  may  destroy 
all  this. 

And  so  the  rich  gather  in  one  place  and  settle  near 
other  rich  people  with  similar  wants  in  the  cities,  where 
the  gratification  of  all  kinds  of  luxurious  tastes  is  cau- 
tiously guarded  by  a  numerous  police  force.  The  funda- 
mental city  dwellers  are  the  officials  of  the  country  ;  about 
them  are  grouped  all  kinds  of  professionals  and  indus- 
trialists, and  these  are  joined  by  the  rich.  Here  a  rich 
man  need  only  have  a  wish,  and  it  is  immediately  ful- 
filled. Here  it  is  pleasanter  for  a  rich  man  to  live,  for 
this  reason  also,  that  here  he  is  able  to  satisfy  his  vanity, 
for  he  can  vie  in  his  luxury  with  others,  and  can  startle 
and  overshadow  people.  Above  all  else,  a  rich  man  feels 
happier  in  the  city  for  this  reason  also,  that  before  he  had 
fears  on  account  of  his  luxury  in  the  country,  but  now,  on 
the  contrary,  he  feels  out  of  place  if  he  does  not  live 
as  luxuriously  as  all  his  friends  around  him.  What 
in  the  country  seemed  terrible  and  awkward  to  him,  here 
seems  to  be  in  place. 

The  rich  congregate  in  the  city,  and  here,  under  the 
protection  of  the  authorities,  use  up  everything  which  is 
brought  hither  from  cne  country.  The  villager  is  partly 
obhged  to  go  where  the  unceasing  holiday  of  the  rich 
is  celebrated,  and  where  that  which  is  taken  from  him  is 
used  up,  in  order  that  he  may  feed  on  the  crumbs  which 
fall  from  the  tables  of  the  rich ;  and  partly,  as  he  looks 
at  the  free  and  easy,  elegant,  well-guarded  life  of  the  rich, 
which  is  approved  of  by  everybody,  he  himself  wants  to 
arrange  his  life  in  such  a  way  as  to  work  least  and  enjoy 
most  the  labours  of  others. 

And  so  he,  too,  is  drawn  to  the  city,  where  he  hangs  on 
to  the  rich,  trying  in  every  manner  possible  to  get  away 
from  them  what  he  needs,  and  submitting  to  all  those 


74  WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO    THEN? 

conditions  in  which  the  rich  have  placed  him.  He  con- 
tributes to  the  gratification  of  all  their  lusts ;  he  or  she 
serves  the  rich  man  in  the  bath-house,  and  in  the  restau- 
rant, and  as  a  driver,  and  as  a  prostitute,  and  makes  car- 
riages for  him,  and  toys,  and  fashion  articles,  and  by 
degrees  learns  of  the  rich  man  to  live  like  him,  not 
by  labour,  but  by  all  kinds  of  tricks,  cheating  others 
of  their  hoarded  wealth,  —  and  he  becomes  corrupted  and 
perishes.  It  is  this  population,  which  is  corrupted  by 
the  city  wealth,  that  forms  the  city  poverty,  which  I  in- 
tended to  assist,  but  could  not. 

Indeed,  it  is  enough  for  one  to  stop  and  think  of  the 
condition  of  these  country  dwellers,  who,  for  the  purpose 
of  earning  money  for  bread  and  for  the  taxes,  come  to  the 
city  where  they  see  all  about  them  thousands  slung 
thoughtlessly  away  and  hundreds  earned  in  a  very  easy 
manner,  while  they  themselves  earn  kopeks  by  the  hard- 
est labour  possible,  —  in  order  that  one  may  marvel  why 
there  are  still  left  working  people,  and  why  they  do  not 
all  of  them  take  to  a  much  easier  way  of  making  money, 
by  means  of  commerce,  peddling,  begging,  debauch,  ras- 
cality, and  even  robbery. 

We,  indeed,  the  participants  in  the  unceasing  orgy 
which  takes  place  in  the  cities,  we  are  able  to  get  used  to 
our  life,  so  that  it  seems  quite  natural  for  us  to  live  alone 
in  five  enormous  rooms,  which  are  heated  with  a  quantity 
of  wood  sufficient  to  cook  the  food  of  twenty  families,  and 
to  warm  them,  to  travel  half  a  verst  with  two  trotters 
and  two  servants,  to  cover  the  parquetry  floor  with  rugs, 
and  to  spend  five  and  ten  thousand  for  a  ball,  and 
twenty-five  for  a  Christmas  tree,  and  so  forth.  But  a 
man  who  needs  ten  roubles  for  bread  for  his  family, 
or  from  \yhom  they  take  the  last  sheep  for  the  seven 
roubles  of  his  taxes,  and  who  cannot  earn  these  seven 
roubles  by  hard  labour  even,  cannot  get  used  to  it. 

We   imagine   that   all   this   appears   natural   to   poor 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  75 

people ;  there  even  are  naive  people  who  say  seriously 
that  the  poor  are  very  Jhankful  to  us  for  supporting  them 
through  our  luxury.  But  the  poor  are  not  deprived 
of  human  intelligence  because  they  are  poor,  and  they 
judge  precisely  as  we  do.  Even  as  we,  on  hearing  that 
such  and  such  a  person  has  lost  in  cards,  or  wasted  ten 
or  twenty  thousand,  think  at  first  thought  what  a  foolish 
and  worthless  man  he  is  to  have  uselessly  squandered 
such  a  sum,  and  how  we  might  have  made  excellent  use 
of  it  for  our  building,  which  we  have  been  needing  for 
quite  awhile,  or  for  the  improvement  of  the  estate,  and 
so  forth,  —  so  the  poor  judge,  when  they  see  the  wealth 
recklessly  thrown  about;  and  they  are  the  more  per- 
sistent in  their  reflections  since  they  do  not  need  the 
money  for  any  fancies,  but  for  the  gratification  of  their 
daily  needs,  of  which  they  are  deprived.  We  are  very 
much  in  error  if  we  think  that  the  poor  can  judge  thus 
and  yet  look  with  indifference  on  the  luxury  which  sur- 
rounds them. 

They  have  never  acknowledged  the  fact  that  it  is  right 
for  one  set  of  people  to  be  celebrating  all  the  time,  while 
others  are  all  the  time  fasting  and  working ;  at  first  they 
are  surprised  at  it  and  feel  offended,  but  later  they  ex- 
amine it  more  closely  and,  seeing  that  this  order  of  things 
is  considered  legitimate,  they  try  to  free  themselves  from 
labour,  and  to  take  part  in  the  holiday.  Some  succeed  in 
it,  and  they  become  just  such  eternal  celebrators;  others 
slowly  make  their  way  toward  this  state  ;  others  give  way 
before  reaching  their  goal  and,  having  lost  the  habit  of 
working,  fill  the  resorts  of  prostitution  and  the  doss- 
houses. 

Two  years  ago  we  took  a  peasant  lad  from  the  country 
to  work  in  the  buffet-room.  He  had  a  disagreement  with 
the  lackey,  and  was  discharged  ;  he  entered  the  service  of 
a  merchant,  where  he  managed  to  please  his  master,  and 
now  he  sports  a  vest  and  a  chain  and  foppish  boots.    In  his 


76  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

place  we  engaged  another  peasant,  a  married  man  ;  he  went 
on  a  spree  and  lost  his  money.  We  took  a  third  man  : 
he,  too,  took  to  drinking  and,  having  spent  every  kopek, 
for  a  long  time  suffered  misery  in  a  doss-house.  Our  old 
cook  got  drunk  in  the  city,  and  fell  sick.  Last  year  our 
lackey,  who  used  to  drink  without  let-up,  but  who  for 
five  years  had  kept  himself  straight  in  the  country,  with- 
out as  much  as  touching  liquor,  went  on  a  spree,  and 
ruined  his  whole  life.  A  young  lad  from  our  village  is  a 
servant  of  my  brother's  buffet-room.  His  grandfather, 
a  blind  old  man,  came  to  me,  during  my  stay  in  the 
country,  and  asked  me  to  influence  his  grandchild  to  send 
him  ten  roubles  for  the  taxes,  for  otherwise  he  would 
have  to  sell  his  cow. 

"  He  keeps  saying  that  he  has  to  dress  decently ;  well, 
let  him  get  a  pair  of  boots,  and  let  there  be  an  end  of  it. 
Or  is  he  going  to  provide  himself  with  a  watch,  too?" 
said  the  old  man,  meaning  to  express  as  senseless  a  propo- 
sition as  possible  by  it.  The  proposition  was,  indeed, 
senseless,  if  we  know  that  the  old  man  had  prepared  his 
food  without  butter  during  the  whole  of  Lent,  and  that 
the  wood  which  he  had  cut  was  being  ruined,  because  he 
lacked  one  rouble  and  twenty  kopeks  to  pay  for  it 
in  full ;  but  it  turned  out  that  the  senseless  jest  of  the 
old  man  was  a  reality.  The  lad  came  to  me  in  an  over- 
coat of  fine  black  cloth  and  in  boots  for  which  he  had 
paid  eight  roubles.  The  other  day  he  took  ten  roubles 
from  my  brother  and  spent  them  all  on  boots.  My  chil- 
dren, who  had  known  the  lad  since  childhood,  informed 
me  that  he  regarded  it  indeed  as  nece'fesary  to  provide 
himself  with  a  watch.  He  is  a  very  good  lad,  but  he 
thinks  that  they  will  laugh  at  him  so  long  as  he  does  not 
procure  a  watch.     And  he  must  have  the  watch. 

This  year  our  chambermaid,  a  girl  of  eighteen  years  of 
age,  entered  into  a  liaison  with  the  coachman.  She  was 
discharged.     An  old  nurse,  with  whom  I  spoke  of  this 


WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO    THEN 


? 


unfortunate  girl,  reminded  me  of  another  girl,  whom  I 
had  forgotten.  She,  too,  had  ten  years  before  entered 
into  a  liaison  with  a  coachman  of  ours  ;  she,  too,  had  been 
discharged,  and  ended  up  in  a  house  of  prostitution,  dying, 
before  she  had  reached  the  age  of  twenty,  in  a  hospital 
from  the  effect  of  syphilis.  We  need  but  look  around  us 
in  order  to  get  frightened  at  the  infection  which,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  factories  and  manufacturing  plants  that 
also  serve  our  luxury,  we  by  our  luxurious  life  directly 
disseminate  among  those  people  whom  we  wish  to  help. 

And  so,  as  I  grasped  the  peculiarity  of  the  city  poverty, 
to  which  I  was  unable  to  offer  any  assistance,  I  saw  that 
its  first  cause  was  this,  that  I  took  everything  necessary 
away  from  the  village  dwellers  and  transferred  it  all  to 
the  city.  The  second  cause  was  this,  that  here,  in  the  city, 
where  I  made  use  of  what  I  had  collected  in  the  country, 
I  with  my  reckless  luxury  tempted  and  corrupted  those 
country  dwellers  who  came  here  in  my  track,  in  order 
somehow  to  get  back  what  was  taken  from  them  in  the 
village. 


XIV. 

I  CAME  to  the  same  conclusion  from  an  entirely  differ- 
ent side.  As  I  recalled  all  my  relations  with  the  city 
paupers  at  this  time,  I  saw  that  one  of  the  causes  which 
kept  me  from  aiding  the  city  poor  was  this,  that  the  poor 
were  insincere  and  untruthful  to  me.  They  all  looked 
upon  me,  not  as  a  man,  but  as  a  means.  I  was  not  able 
to  get  in  closer  touch  with  them  and,  perhaps,  I  did  not 
know  how  to ;  but  without  truthfulness  aid  was  impos- 
sible. How  could  a  man  be  aided  if  he  did  not  tell  every- 
thing about  his  situation  ?  At  first  I  reproached  them 
for  it  (it  is  so  natural  to  reproach  others),  but  one  word 
of  a  remarkable  man,  namely,  of  Syutaev,  who  was  stay- 
ing at  my  house  at  that  time,  made  the  whole  matter 
clear  to  me  and  showed  wherein  lay  the  cause  of  my 
failure. 

I  remember  that  even  then  the  word  uttered  by  Syutaev 
struck  me  forcibly ;  but  only  much  later  did  I  grasp  its 
whole  meaning.  It  was  during  the  full  heat  of  my  self- 
deception.  I  was  sitting  at  my  sister's,  where  Syutdev 
was  also.  My  sister  asked  me  about  my  undertaking. 
T  told  her  about  it  and,  as  is  always  the  case  when  a  man 
does  not  believe  in  his  own  undertaking,  I  told  her  with 
much  fervour,  enthusiasm,  and  eloquence  about  what  I 
was  doing,  and  what  might  come  of  it ;  I  told  her  how 
we  were  going  to  look  after  orphans  and  old  people; 
how  we  would  send  out  of  town  such  of  the  country 
dwellers  as  had  fallen  into  straits  in  Moscow;  how  we 
would  make  it  easy  for  the  corrupt  to  mend  their  ways ; 

78 


WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO    THEN?  79 

how,  if  the  matter  would  go  at  all,  there  would  not  be  a 
man  in  Moscow  who  would  be  unable  to  get  assistance. 

My  sister  sympathized  with  me,  and  we  went  on  talk- 
ing. During  the  conversation  I  cast  glances  at  Syutaev. 
As  I  knew  his  Christian  life  and  the  significance  which 
is  ascribed  to  charity,  I  expected  him  to  sympathize  with 
me,  and  I  spoke  in  such  a  way  that  he  might  understand 
me;  I  talked  to  my  sister,  but  my  words  were* directed  at 
him.  He  sat  motionless  in  his  black-tanned  sheepskin 
coat,  which,  like  all  peasants,  he  wore  outside  and  in  the 
house,  and  did  not  seem  to  be  hstening  to  us,  but  only 
thinking.  His  httle  eyes  were  not  glistening,  but  seemed 
to  be  turned  inward.  Having  talked  quite  awhile,  I 
turned  to  him  with  the  question  what  he  thought 
about  it. 

"  It's  all  nonsense,"  he  said. 

«  Why  ? " 

"  Your  whole  society  is  foolish,  and  no  good  will  come 
from  it,"  he  repeated,  with  conviction. 

"  Why  not  ?  Why  is  it  foolish  to  help  thousands,  or 
say  hundreds,  of  unfortunates  ?  Is  it  bad  according  to 
the  Gospel  to  clothe  the  naked  and  feed  the  hungry  ? " 

"I  know,  I  know,  but  you  are  not  doing  the  right  thing. 
Do  you  suppose  you  can  do  anything  this  way  ?  You  are 
walking,  and  a  man  asks  you  for  twenty  kopeks.  Ypu 
give  them  to  him.  Is  that  an  alms  ?  Give  him  a  spirit- 
ual alms,  instruct  him ;  but  what  did  you  give  him  ?  Oh, 
■just  something  to  get  rid  of  him." 

"  No,  you  do  not  understand  me  right.  We  want  to 
find  out  where  there  is  want,  and  then  help  with  money 
and  with  deeds,  —  and  to  find  work  for  them." 

"  You  will  do  nothing  for  the  people  in  this  manner." 

"  Well,  shall  they  starve  and  freeze  to  death  ? " 

"  Why  should  they  ?     Are  there  many  of  them  here  ? " 

"  Are  there  many  ? "  I  said,  thinking  that  he  was  look- 
ing so  hghtly  at  the  matter  because  he  did  not  know  what 


80  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

an  immense  number  there  was  ot  these  people.  "  Do  you 
know,"  I  said,  "  that  there  are  some  twenty  thousand  of 
these  starving  and  freezing  people  in  Moscow?  And 
then,  in  St.  Petersburg  and  other  cities." 

He  smiled. 

"  Twenty  thousand !  and  how  many  farms  are  there  in 
Russia  ?     Will  there  be  a  million  of  them  ? " 

«  What  of  it  ? " 

"  What  of  it  ? "  and  his  eyes  sparkled,  and  he  became 
enlivened.  "  Well,  let  us  consider  the  matter.  I  am  not 
a  rich  man,  but  I  will  take  two  of  them.  You  took  a 
lad  to  the  kitchen ;  I  invited  him  to  go  with  me,  but  he 
would  not.  Even  if  there  were  ten  times  as  many,  we 
could  manage  them.  You  and  I  will  take  them.  We  will 
go  to  work  together :  he  will  see  me  work  and  will  learn 
how  to  live,  and  we  shall  sit  down  to  eat  at  the  same 
table,  and  he  will  hear  a  good  word  from  me  or  you. 
This  I  call  charity,  but  that  society  of  yours  is  all  non- 
sense." 

These  simple  words  startled  me.  I  could  not  help  but 
acknowledge  the  justice  of  his  words,  but  it  then  seemed 
to  me  that,  in  spite  of  this  justice,  my  undertaking  might 
still  be  useful.  But  the  farther  I  carried  on  this  matter, 
the  more  I  came  in  contact  with  the  poor,  the  more  fre- 
quently did  I  recall  these  words  and  the  greater  was  the 
meaning  which  they  began  to  have  for  me. 

Indeed,  I  arrive  in  an  expensive  fur  coat  or  am  brought 
there  in  my  own  carriage,  or  he  sees  my  two-thousand- 
rouble  apartments,  while  he  needs  a  pair  of  boots ;  or  he 
will  see  me  give  somebody  five  roubles  without  giving 
any  thought  to  it,  merely  because  I  wanted  to  do  so ;  he 
knows  that,  if  I  give  roubles  in  such  a  fashion,  I  do 
so  because  I  have  collected  such  a  lot  of  them  that  I  have 
many  more,  which  I  not  only  do  not  give  to  anybody,  but 
have  with  ease  taken  away  from  others.  What  else  can 
he  see  in  me  but  one  of  those  men  who  have  taken  pos- 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  81 

session  of  what  ought  to  belong  to  him  ?  What  other 
feeling  can  he  have  for  me  but  the  desire  to  get  out  of  me 
as  many  as  possible  of  these  roubles,  which  I  have  taken 
away  from  him  and  from  others  ?  I  want  to  become 
more  closely  acquainted  with  him,  and  I  complain  that 
he  is  not  sincere ;  but  I,  to  tell  the  truth,  am  afraid  to  sit 
down  on  his  bed  for  fear  of  becoming  infested  with  lice 
or  catching  a  disease,  and  am  afraid  to  admit  him  to  my 
room,  when  he  comes  to  my  house  half-naked  and  waits, 
not  even  in  the  antechamber,  but  in  the  vestibule.  And 
I  say  that  it  is  his  fault  that  I  cannot  come  closer  to  him, 
and  that  he  is  not  sincere. 

Let  the  most  cruel  of  men  try  to  eat  a  good  meal 
of  five  courses  in  the  company  of  men  who  have  eaten 
Httle  or  who  eat  nothing  but  black  bread.  Not  one  of 
them  will  have  enough  courage  to  eat,  and  to  look  at 
the  hungry  persons  with  their  mouths  watering.  Conse- 
quently to  be  able  to  eat  with  pleasure  amidst  those  who 
do  not  get  enough  to  eat,  the  first  duty  is  to  hide  from 
them  and  to  eat  in  such  a  way  that  they  may  not  see  it. 
This  is  precisely  what,  before  anything  else,  we  actually 
do. 

And  so  I  looked  more  simply  at  our  life,  and  I  saw 
that  a  closer  communion  with  the  poor  was  not  acci- 
dentally more  difficult  for  us,  but  that  we  intentionally 
arranged  our  life  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  this  com- 
munion difiicult. 

More  than  this :  looking  from  one  side  at  our  life,  at 
the  life  of  the  rich,  I  noticed  that  everything  which 
is  regarded  as  a  good  in  this  Hfe  consists  in  this,  or  is  at 
least  inseparably  connected  with  this,  that  we  should 
as  much  as  possible  segregate  ourselves  from  the  poor. 
Indeed,  all  the  striving  of  our  life  of  wealth,  beginning 
with  our  food,  our  attire,  our  housing,  our  purity,  and 
ending  with  our  education,  —  everything  has  for  its  main 
purpose  a  segregation  from  the  poor.     And  on  this  segre- 


82  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

gation  and  separation  by  impassable  walls  from  the  poor  at 
least  nine-tenths  of  all  our  wealth  is  wasted.  The  first 
thing  a  man  grown  rich  does  is  to  stop  eating  out  of  the 
same  bowl,  —  he  gets  all  kinds  of  appliances  and  sepa- 
rates himself  from  the  kitchen  and  from  the  servants. 

He  feeds  his  servants  well,  so  that  their  mouths  shall 
not  water  over  his  savoury  food,  but  he  eats  by  himself ; 
but,  as  it  is  tiresome  to  eat  alone,  he  invents  things  that 
may  improve  the  food  and  beautify  the  table,  and  the 
mere  nutrition  (the  dinners)  become  for  him  a  matter  of 
vanity  and  of  pride ;  and  the  reception  of  food  becomes 
for  him  a  means  for  segregating  himself  from  the  rest  of 
the  people.  It  is  unthinkable  for  a  rich  man  to  invite 
a  poor  man  to  his  table.  A  man  has  to  know  how  to 
take  a  lady  to  the  table,  how  to  bow,  sit,  eat,  wash  the 
mouth,  and  it  is  only  the  rich  who  know  all  this. 

The  same  takes  place  with  the  wearing  apparel.  If  a 
rich  man  wore  simple  garments,  which  only  protected  the 
body  against  the  cold,  —  short  or  long  fur  coats,  felt  or 
leather  boots,  a  peasant  coat,  pantaloons,  shirts,  —  he 
would  need  very  httle,  and  he  could  not  help,  if  he  had 
two  fur  coats,  but  give  one  to  him  who  had  none;  but 
the  rich  man  begins  by  having  made  for  himself  wearing 
apparel  that  consists  of  several  parts  and  is  good  only  for 
certain  occasions,  and  so  is  of  no  use  to  the  poor  man. 
He  has  dress  coats,  vests,  sack  coats,  patent  leather  boots, 
capes,  shoes  with  French  heels,  garments  that  for  the 
sake  of  fashion  are  cut  up  into  small  pieces,  hunting 
coats  and  travelling  ulsters,  and  so  forth,  which  can  be 
put  to  use  only  in  a  condition  removed  from  poverty. 
Thus  the  wearing  apparel  also  becomes  a  means  for  segre- 
gating oneself  from  the  poor.  Fashion  makes  its  appear- 
ance, that  is,  that  which  separates  the  rich  from  the 
poor. 

The  same,  but  still  more  clearly,  is  to  be  seen  in  the 
matter  of  the  domicile.     In  order  to  live  alone  in  ten 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  83 

rooms,  it  is  necessary  that  this  be  not  seen  by  those  who 
live  ten  at  a  time  in  one  room.  The  richer  a  man  is, 
the  more  difficult  it  is  to  get  access  to  him,  the  more 
porters  there  are  between  him  and  the  needy,  and  the  less 
possible  it  is  to  take  a  poor  man  over  his  carpets  and  seat 
him  in  velvet  chairs.  The  same  is  true  in  the  matter 
of  locomotion.  A  peasant  who  is  travelling  in  a  car  or 
sledge  must  be  very  cruel  not  to  give  a  passer-by  a  ride, 
—  he  has  both  the  room  and  the  possibility  for  it.  But 
the  more  elegant  the  carriage  is,  the  farther  it  is  removed 
from  the  possibility  of  giving  anybody  a  ride.  There 
is  even  a  saying"  about  very  foppish  carriages  being 
egotists. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  whole  manner  of  life,  which  is 
expressed  by  the  word  cleanhness. 

Cleanliness !  Who  does  not  know  people,  especially 
women,  who  regard  this  cleanliness  as  a  high  virtue  ? 
And  who  does  not  know  the  extravagancies  of  this  clean- 
liness, which  has  no  hmits,  when  it  is  attained  by 
other  people's  work  ?  What  man  who  has  grown  rich 
has  not  experienced  in  his  own  person  with  what  diffi- 
culty he  has  acquired  this  cleanhness,  which  only 
confirms  the  proverb,  "  White  hands  love  other  people's 
worii  ? " 

To-day  cleanliness  consists  in  changing  your  shirt 
every  day ;  to-morrow  it  will  have  to  be  changed  twice 
a  day.  To-day  it  is  the  neck  and  the  hands  that  are  to 
be  washed  every  day ;  to-morrow  it  will  be  the  feet,  and 
another  day  the  whole  body,  and  at  that  with  a  particular 
kind  of  rubbing  down.  To-day  it  is  a  table-cloth  for  two 
days,  to-morrow  it  vn.ll  be  one  a  day,  and  another  time 
two  a  day.  To-day  the  lackey's  hands  should  be  clean ; 
to-morrow  he  is  to  wear  gloves  and  to  hand  a  letter  on 
a  clean  tray,  wearing  clean  gloves.  There  is  no  limit 
to  this  useless  cleanliness,  except  to  segregate  one  from 
the  rest  and  to  make  communion  with  them  impossible  so 


84  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

long  as  this  cleanliness  is  attained  through  the  labour 
of  other  people. 

Moreover,  when  I  grasped  it  all,  I  became  convinced 
that  what  in  general  is  caUed  education  is  also  the  same. 
Language  does  not  deceive:  it  calls  by  the  right  name 
what  people  understand  by  this  name.  The  masses  under- 
stand by  education  a  fashionable  dress,  a  polite  conversa- 
tion, clean  hands,  —  cleanliness  of  a  certain  character. 
Of  such  a  man  they  say,  in  contradistinction  from  the 
rest,  that  he  is  an  educated  man.  In  the  circle  a  little 
more  cultured  than  the  masses  the  same  is  understood  by 
education,  but  to  its  conditions  they  add  playing  on  the 
piano,  the  knowledge  of  French,  the  writing  of  a  Kussian 
letter  without  orthographical  mistakes,  and  a  still  greater 
external  cleanhness.  In  the  next  higher  circle  they  mean 
by  it  the  same  with  the  addition  of  the  English  language 
and  of  a  diploma  from  a  higher  institution  of  learning,  and 
a  still  higher  degree  of  cleanliness.  But  in  all  three  cases 
the  education  is  essentially  the  same.  Education  is  those 
forms,  and  that  knowledge  which  are  to  segregate  a  man 
from  tlie  rest.  Its  aim  is  the  same  as  thai  of  cleanliness, 
—  to  separate  a  person  from  the  mass  of  the  poor,  in 
order  that  they,  the  starving  and  the  freezing,  may  not 
see  us  celebrate.  But  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  conceal 
ourselves,  and  they  see. 

And  so  I  became  convinced  that  the  cause  which  made 
it  impossible  for  us  rich  men  to  help  the  city  paupers  also 
lay  in  the  impossibility  of  our  communion  with  them, 
and  that  we  ourselves  made  it  impossible  to  commune 
with  them  by  the  whole  Hfe  which  we  lead,  by  the  use  to 
which  we  put  our  wealth.  I  became  convinced  that 
between  us,  the  rich,  and  the  poor  there  had  been  raised 
by  us  a  wall  of  cleanhness  and  of  education,  which  our 
wealth  has  reared,  and  that,  to  be  able  to  aid  the  poor,  we 
must  first  of  all  destroy  the  wall  and  make  possible  the 
application  of  Syutdev's  method,  —  distributing  the  poor. 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  8.6 

And  thus  I  came  from  another  side  to  the  same  inference 
to  which  I  had  been  brought  by  the  train  of  my  thought 
concerning  the  causes  of  the  city  poverty :  the  cause  lay 
in  our  wealth. 


XV. 

I  BEGAN  to  analyze  the  matter  from  a  third,  a  purely 
personal,  side.  Among  the  number  of  the  phenomena 
which  struck  me  particularly  during  this  time  of  my 
philanthropic  activity,  there  was  a  very  strange  one  for 
which  I  could  not  for  a  long  time  find  any  explanation. 
It  was  this :  every  time  I  had  a  chance  in  the  street  or 
at  home  to  give  to  a  pauper,  without  talking  with  him,  some 
small  coin,  I  saw,  or  I  thought  I  saw,  joy  and  gratitude 
expressed  on  the  poor  man's  face,  and  I  myself  experienced 
a  pleasant  sensation  in  connection  with  this  form  of  philan- 
thropy. I  saw  that  I  did  what  the  man  wanted  and 
expected  of  me.  But  if  I  stopped  to  talk  with  the  poor 
man,  sympathetically  asking  him  about  his  former  and 
his  present  life,  and  more  or  less  entered  into  the  details 
of  his  life,  I  felt  that  I  could  no  longer  give  him  three  or 
twenty  kopeks,  and  began  to  rummage  in  my  purse,  doubt- 
ing how  much  to  give.  I  always  gave  more  and  always 
saw  that  the  poor  man  went  away  from  me  dissatisfied. 
But  if  I  entered  into  still  closer  communion  with  the  poor 
man,  I  was  in  still  greater  perplexity  as  to  how  much  to 
give,  and,  no  matter  how  much  I  gave,  the  poor  man 
grew  more  gloomy  and  more  dissatisfied. 

As  a  general  rule  it  always  turned  out  that  if,  after  a 
closer  contact  with  a  poor  man,  I  gave  him  three  roubles 
or  more,  I  nearly  always  saw  gloom,  dissatisfaction,  and 
even  resentment  on  the  face  of  the  man,  and  it  sometimes 
happened  that  he  took  ten  roubles  and  went  away,  with- 
out as  much  as  thanking  me  for  it,  as  though  I  had 
offended   him.     On  such  occasions  I  always  felt  ill  at 

39 


WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  87 

ease,  and  ashamed,  and  guilty.  But  if  I  watched  a  poor 
man  for  weeks,  months,  and  years,  aiding  him  and  express- 
ing my  views  to  him,  and  keeping  in  close  contact  with 
him,  my  relations  with  him  nearly  always  became  a 
torment,  and  I  saw  that  the  poor  man  hated  me.  And  I 
felt  that  he  was  right. 

If  I  walk  down  the  street,  and  he,  standing  in  the 
street,  asks  me,  among  the  number  of  other  passers-by, 
for  three  kopeks,  and  I  give  them  to  him,  I  am  for  him 
a  passer-by,  and  a  good  passer-by  at  that,  one  of  those 
who  give  a  thread  out  of  which  the  naked  man's  shirt  is 
formed ;  he  is  not  expecting  anything  more  than  a  thread, 
and  if  I  give  it  to  him,  he  is  sincerely  grateful  to  me. 
But  if  I  stop  to  talk  with  him,  as  with  a  man,  and  show 
him  that  I  want  to  be  more  than  a  passer-by  to  him ;  if, 
as  has  frequently  happened,  he  weeps,  as  he  tells  me  his 
woe,  he  no  longer  sees  in  me  a  passer-by,  but  what  I  want 
him  to  see  in  me,  —  a  good  man.  And  if  I  am  a  good 
man,  my  goodness  cannot  stop  at  two  dimes,  nor  at  ten 
roubles,  nor  at  ten  thousand.  It  is  impossible  to  be  a 
good  man  just  a  little. 

Let  us  suppose  that  I  have  given  him  a  great  deal,  that 
I  have  fixed  him  up,  clothed  him,  put  him  on  his  feet,  so 
that  he  is  able  to  live  without  another  person's  aid ;  but 
for  some  reason  or  other,  whether  from  misfortune,  or 
from  weakness,  or  from  viciousness,  he  again  lacks  an 
overcoat,  and  underwear,  and  the  money  which  I  gave 
him,  and  he  is  again  freezing  and  starving,  and  he  again 
comes  to  me,  —  why  shall  I  refuse  him  ?  If  the  cause  of 
my  activity  consisted  in  obtaining  a  certain  material  aim, 
—  in  giving  him  so  many  roubles  or  such  and  such  an 
overcoat,  I  could  give  that  to  him,  and  feel  satisfied ;  but 
the  cause  of  my  activity  is  not  this :  the  cause  is  that  I 
want  to  be  a  good  man,  that  is,  I  want  to  see  myself  in 
every  other  man.  Every  man  understands  kindness  in 
this  manner,  and  not  otherwise.   And  so,  if  he  has  twenty 


88  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

times  squandered  what  you  have  given  him,  and  he  is 
again  freezing  and  starving,  and  you  are  a  good  man,  you 
cannot  help  but  give  him  some  again,  and  you  cannot 
stop  giving  him,  if  you  have  more  than  he  has.  But  if 
you  back  out,  you  show  by  this  that  everything  you  did, 
you  did  not  because  you  are  a  good  man,  but  because  you 
wanted  to  appear  as  a  good  man  before  all  men  and  before 
him. 

And  it  was  with  such  people,  when  I  had  to  back  out 
and  stop  giving,  and  thus  renounce  the  good,  that  I 
experienced  agonizing  shame. 

What  was  this  shame  ?  This  shame  I  had  experienced 
in  Lyapinski  House,  and  before  and  after  that  in  the 
country,  whenever  I  had  occasion  to  give  money  or  some- 
thing else  to  the  poor,  and  during  my  visits  to  the  city 
poor. 

A  case  of  shame  which  lately  happened  with  me 
reminded  me  and  elucidated  to  me  the  causes  of  the 
shame  which  I  used  to  experience  when  giving  money  to 
the  poor. 

This  happened  in  the  country.  I  needed  twenty  kopeks 
to  give  them  to  a  pilgrim ;  I  sent  my  son  to  borrow  them 
from  some  one;  he  took  two  dimes  to  the  pilgrim,  and 
told  me  that  he  had  borrowed  them  from  the  cook.  A 
few  days  later  other  pilgrims  came,  and  I  again  needed 
twenty  kopeks ;  I  had  a  rouble ;  I  recalled  my  owing 
the  cook  twenty  kopeks,  and  went  to  the  kitchen,  in  the 
hope  that  the  cook  would  have  some  more  change.  I 
said  to  him : 

"  I  borrowed  two  dimes  from  you,  so  here  is  a  rouble." 

Before  I  had  finished  speaking,  the  cook  called  his  wife 
from  the  adjoining  room. 

"  Par^sha,  take  it,"  he  said. 

Assuming  that  she  understood  what  I  needed,  I  gave 
her  the  rouble.  I  must  say  that  the  €ook  had  lived  about 
a  week  in  our  house,  and  I  had  seen  his  wife,  though  T 


WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  89 

had  never  spoken  to  her.  I  was  on  the  point  of  saying 
to  her  that  I  wanted  change  for  it,  when  she  made  a  rapid 
motion  toward  my  hand,  intending  to  kiss  it,  no  doubt  on 
the  supposition  that  I  was  giving  her  the  rouble.  I  mut- 
tered something  and  left  the  kitchen.  I  felt  ashamed, 
painfully  ashamed,  as  I  had  not  felt  for  a  long  time.  I 
had  a  griping  pain,  and  I  felt  that  I  was  making  faces, 
and  I  groaned  from  shame,  as  I  ran  out  of  the  kitchen. 
This,  as  I  thought,  undeserved  and  unexpected  shame 
startled  me,  more  especially  since  I  had  not  felt  any 
shame  for  a  long  time  and  because  I,  as  an  old  man,  was 
living,  as  I  thought,  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  deserve 
such  shame.  I  was  very  much  startled  by  it.  I  told 
this  to  my  family,  and  to  my  friends,  and  all  agreed  that 
they  would  have  experienced  the  same.  I  began  to  wonder 
why  I  had  felt  ashamed.  An  incident  which  had  happened 
to  me  in  Moscow  gave  an  answer  to  it. 

I  reflected  on  this  incident,  and  I  found  an  explanation 
for  the  shame  which  I  had  experienced  with  the  cook's 
wife,  and  all  those  sensations  which  I  had  experienced 
during  my  Moscow  philanthropic  activity,  and  which  I 
now  experience  every  time  when  I  have  to  give  to  people 
something  beyond  that  small  pittance  to  mendicants  and 
pilgrims  which  I  am  in  the  habit  of  giving  and  consider 
the  work  not  of  charity,  but  of  decency  and  politeness. 
If  a  man  asks  you  for  fire,  you  must  Hght  a  match  for 
him,  if  you  have  one.  If  a  man  asks  you  for  three  or 
for  twenty  kopeks,  or  even  for  several  roubles,  you  must 
give  him  that  sum,  if  you  have  it.  This  is  a  matter  of 
politeness,  and  not  of  charity. 

Here  is  a  case  :  I  have  already  spoken  of  the  two  peas- 
ants with  whom  I  used  to  saw  wood  two  years  ago.  One 
Saturday  evening,  as  it  was  getting  dark,  I  went  with 
them  into  the, city.  They  were  going  to  their  master  to 
receive  their  wages.  As  we  approached  Dragomilov  Bridge 
we  met  an  old  man.     He  asked  for  an  alms,  and  I  gave 


90  WHAT   SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

him  twenty  kopeks.  As  I  gave  them  to  him,  I  reflected 
on  how  well  this  must  affect  Sem^n,  with  whom  I  had 
spoken  of  divine  things.  Sem^n,  that  Vladimir  peasant, 
who  had  a  wife  and  two  children  in  Moscow,  himself 
stopped,  turned  aside  the  skirt  of  his  caftan,  took  out  his 
purse,  rummaged  in  it  awhile,  and  fetched  out  three 
kopeks,  which  he  gave  to  the  old  man,  asking  him  to  give 
him  back  two  kopeks. 

The  old  man  showed  him  two  three-kopek  coins  and 
one  one-kopek  coin.  Sem^n  looked  at  these,  and  was  on 
the  point  of  taking  the  kopek,  but  changed  his  mind,  took 
off  his  cap,  made  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  went  on,  leav- 
ing the  three  kopeks  with  the  old  man.  I  knew  all  about 
Semen's  financial  condition :  he  had  neither  a  house,  nor 
any  property.  Up  to  the  day  on  which  he  gave  those 
three  kopeks  he  had  earned  six  roubles  and  fifty  kopeks. 
Consequently  six  roubles  and  fifty  kopeks  represented  all 
his  savings.  My  savings  were  approximately  equal  to  six 
hundred  thousand  roubles.  I  had  a  wife  and  children, 
so  had  Semdn.  He  was  younger  than  I,  and  had  fewer 
children ;  but  his  children  were  little,  while  I  had  two 
of  working  age,  so  that  our  situations,  outside  of  our  sav- 
ings, were  the  same,  —  I  may  say  mine  w^as  a  httle  more 
favourable.  He  gave  three  kopeks,  I  gave  twenty.  What 
did  he  give,  and  what  did  I  give  ?  What  ought  I  to  have 
done  in  order  to  equal  Sem^n  ?  He  had  six  hundred 
kopeks ;  he  gave  away  one  of  them,  and  then  two  more. 
I  had  six  hundred  thousand  roubles.  In  order  to  give 
the  same  as  Sem^n  gave,  I  ought  to  have  given  three 
thousand  roubles,  and  have  asked  back  two  thousand 
roubles,  and,  if  I  could  get  no  change,  to  have  left  also 
these  two  thousand  roubles  with  the  old  man,  made  the 
sign  of  the  cross,  and  walked  on,  talking  peacefully  about 
how  factory  hands  live,  and  how  much  liver  is  worth  in 
Smolensk  Market.  I  thought  about  the  matter  then  and 
there,  but  it  was  only  much  later  that  I  drew  from  tliis 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  91 

incident  the  conclusion  which  inevitably  follows  from  it. 
This  deduction  seems  so  unusual  and  strange  that,  in  spite 
of  its  mathematical  accuracy,  it  takes  time  to  get  used  to 
it.  One  cannot  help  thinking  that  there  must  be  some 
mistake  about  it,  but  there  is  no  mistake.  There  is  only 
a  terrible  darkness  of  errors,  in  which  we  live. 

This  conclusion,  the  moment  I  arrived  at  it,  and  recog- 
nized its  accuracy,  explained  to  me .  my  feeling  of  shame 
in  the  presence  of  the  cook's  wife  and  of  all  the  poor  to 
whom  I  gave  money. 

Indeed,  what  is  all  that  money  which  I  give  to  the 
poor,  and  which  the  cook's  wife  thought  that  I  was  giving 
to  her  ?  In  the  majority  of  cases  it  is  such  a  small  frac- 
tion that  it  is  not  even  possible  to  express  it  intelhgibly 
for  Sem^n  and  the  cook's  wife,  —  it  is  generally  a  mil- 
lionth, or  something  like  it.  I  give  so  little  that  my 
giving  of  money  is  not,  and  cannot  ^  ,,  a  deprivation  for 
me;  it  is  only  a  pastime  which  amuses  me  whenever  and 
however  I  please.  Even  so  did  the  cook's  wife  understand 
me.  If  I  give  a  man  from  the  street  a  rouble  or  twenty 
kopeks,  why  should  I  not  give  her  a  rouble  ?  For  the 
cook's  wife  this  giving  of  a  rouble  is  the  same  as  the 
throwing  of  gingersnaps  among  the  people,  in  which 
gentlemen  indulge :  it  is  the  amusement  of  people  who 
have  a  lot  of  fool's  money.  I  felt  ashamed  because  the 
mistake  of  the  cook's  wife  immediately  showed  me  the 
view  which  she  and  all  who  are  not  well-to-do  must  have 
of  me:  "He  is  throwing  about  fool's  money,"  that  is, 
money  which  he  has  not  worked  for. 

Indeed,  what  is  this  money  of  mine,  and  how  did  I  get 
possession  of  it?  Part  of  it  I  collected  from  the  land 
which  was  left  me  by  my  father.  The  peasants  sold  their 
last  sheep,  or  cow,  in  order  to  give  me  the  money.  Another 
part  of  my  money  is  what  I  have  received  for  my  works, 
for  writing  books.  If  my  books  are  harmful,  they  are 
being  bought  as  a  result  of  the  offence  which  I  have  com- 


92  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

initted,  and  the  money  which  I  receive  for  it  is  ill-gotten ; 
but  if  my  books  are  useful  to  people,  the  result  is  even 
worse.  I  do  not  give  them  to  people,  but  say :  "  Give  me 
seventeen  roubles,  and  I  will  let  you  have  them."  And 
as  in  the  other  case,  a  peasant  will  sell  his  last  sheep, 
so  here  a  poor  student,  a  teacher,  a  poor  man  will  deprive 
himself  of  what  he  needs,  in  order  to  give  me  this  money. 
Thus  I  have  collected  a  lot  of  money,  and  what  do  I  do 
with  it  ?  I  take  this  money  to  the  city  and  give  it  to  the 
poor  only  when  they  comply  with  my  whims  and  come  to 
the  city  to  clean  for  me  the  sidewalks,  the  lamps,  my  boots, 
and  to  work  for  me  in  factories. 

For  this  money  I  haggle  with  them  for  everything  I 
want,  that  is,  I  try  to  give  them  as  little  as  possible  and 
to  get  as  much  as  possible  from  them.  Suddenly  I  begin 
without  any  premeditation,  just  for  the  fun  of  it,  to  give 
this  same  money  to  the  poor,  —  not  to  all  the  poor,  but 
only  to  those  I  take  a  fancy  to.  How  can  any  poor  man 
help  but  hope  that,  perhaps,  it  will  be  his  luck  to  be  one 
of  those  to  whom  I  will  take  dehght  in  giving  away  my 
fool's  money  ?  Thus  all  look  upon  me,  and  thus  did  the 
cook's  wife  look  at  me. 

I  have  been  so  dreadfully  deluded  that  this  taking  of 
thousands  with  one  hand  from  the  poor,  and  slinging 
kopeks  back  to  those  to  whom  I  take  a  fancy,  I  call  doing 
good.     What  wonder,  then,  that  I  felt  ashamed  ? 

Yes,  before  doing  good,  I  must  myself  stand  outside 
of  evil,  and  be  in  such  a  condition  that  I  can  stop  doing 
evil.  But  my  whole  life  is  nothing  but  evil.  If  I  give 
away  one  hundred  thousand  roubles  I  shall  still  fail  to 
be  in  a  situation  where  it  is  possible  to  do  good,  because 
I  shall  have  five  hundred  thousand  roubles  left.  Only 
when  I  shall  have  nothing  left  shall  I  be  able  to  do  a 
little  good,  if  it  be  no  more  ihan  what  the  prostitute  did 
who  for  three  days  attended  on  the  sick  woman  and  her 
babe.    And  this  had  seemed  so  little  to  me !    And  I  dared 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  93 

to  think  of  the  good  !  The  first  inkling  I  had  at  the  sight 
of  the  starving  and  the  freezing  at  Lyapinski  House,  as  to 
my  being  guilty  in  the  matter,  and  as  to  its  being  im- 
possible, impossible,  absolutely  impossible,  to  live  the  way 
I  lived,  —  this  alone  was  the  truth. 

So  what  is  to  be  done  ?  To  this  question,  if  any  one 
needs  an  answer  to  it,  I  shall,  God  willing,  give  a  detailed 
answer. 


XVL 

It  was  hard  for  me  to  come  to  the  recognition  of  this, 
but  when  I  came  to  it,  I  was  horrified  at  the  delusion  in 
which  I  had  hved.  I  was  standing  up  to  my  ears  in  the 
mire  and  pretending  to  pull  others  out  of  it. 

Indeed,  what  did  I  mean  to  do  ?  I  want  to  do  good 
to  others,  I  want  to  see  to  it  that  men  shall  not  suffer 
from  hunger  and  from  cold,  —  that  they  shall  live  as  is 
proper  for  men. 

This  I  want,  and  I  see  that  in  consequence  of  violence, 
extortions,  and  all  kinds  of  tricks,  in  which  I  take  part, 
the  necessary  things  are  taken  away  from  the  working 
classes,  and  that  the  leisure  classes,  to  whom  I  belong, 
make  superabundant  use  of  the  labours  of  other  men. 

I  see  that  this  enjoyment  of  other  people's  work  is 
distributed  in  such  a  manner  that,  the  more  cunning  and 
the  more  complicated  the  device  which  a  man  practises, 
or  which  he  practised  from  whom  he  gets  his  inheritance, 
the  more  fully  does  he  enjoy  the  labours  of  others  and 
the  less  labour  does  he  himself  apply^ 

First  come  a  Stieglitz,  Derviz,  Mordzov,  Demidov, 
Yusupov,  then  the  richer  bankers,  merchants,  landed  pro- 
prietors, officials;  then  the  less  wealthy  bankers,  mer- 
chants, officials,  landed  proprietors,  to  whom  I  belong; 
then  the  lower  order  of  petty  traders,  innkeepers,  usurers, 
officers  of  rural  police,  teachers,  sextons,  clerks ;  then 
janitors,  lackeys,  coachmen,  water-carriers,  drivers,  ped- 
dlers ;  and  finally  the  working  people,  factory  hands  and 
peasants,  who  stand  in  relation  to  the  first  as  ten  is  to 
one. 

94 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  95 

I  see  that  the  life  of  nine-tenths  of  the  working  classes 
by  its  essence  demands  tension  and  work,  like  any  nat- 
ural life,  but  that  in  consequence  of  the  devices  which 
take  the  necessities  away  from  these  people  and  put 
them  under  oppressive  conditions,  this  life  is  getting 
harder  and  fuller  of  privations  from  year  to  year ;  but 
our  life,  the  life  of  the  men  of  leisure,  thanks  to  the  co- 
operation of  the  arts  and  of  the  sciences,  which  are 
directed  to  this  aim,  is  getting  from  year  to  year  more 
abundant,  more  attractive,  and  more  secure.  I  see  that 
in  our  day  the  life  of  the  working  men,  especially  of  the 
old  men,  women,  and  children  of  the  working  population, 
is  simply  being  ruined  by  the  intensified  work,  which 
bears  no  relation  to  the  nourishment  received ;  and  that 
this  life  is  not  made  secure  even  in  its  most  elementary 
necessities ;  and  that,  side  by  side  with  it,  the  hfe  of  the 
leisure  class,  of  which  I  am  a  member,  is  from  year  to 
year  more  and  more  filled  with  superabundance  and 
luxury,  and  becomes  more  and  more  secure,  and  has, 
finally,  in  its  favourites,  to  whom  I  belong,  reached  such 
a  degree  of  security  as  anciently  they  dreamed  about  only 
in  fairy  tales,  —  the  condition  of  the  owner  of  the  purse 
of  the  never-failing  rouble,  that  is,  a  condition  in  which 
a  man  is  not  only  completely  freed  from  the  law  of  labour 
for  the  support  of  life,  but  also  acquires  the  ability  with- 
out labour  to  enjoy  all  the  benefits  of  life  and  to  transmit 
to  his  children  or  to  whom  it  may  please  him  that  purse 
with  the  never-failing  rouble. 

I  see  that  the  products  of  men's  labour  pass  more  and 
more  away  from  the  mass  of  the  labouring  people  to  those 
who  do  not  labour,  and  that  the  pyramid  of  the  social 
structure  seems  to  be  built  in  such  a  way  that  the  stones 
of  the  foundation  are  passing  to  the  apex,  the  rapidity  of 
this  passage  increasing  in  a  certain  geometric  progres- 
sion. I  see  that  what  is  taking  place  is  similar  to  what 
would  take  place  in  an  ant-hill,  if  the  society  of  the  ants 


96  WHAT   SHALL    WE   DO   THEN? 

lost  the  feeling  of  the  common  law,  if  some  of  the  ants 
should  begin  to  transfer  the  products  of  labour  to  the  top 
of  the  hill,  narrowing  down  the  base  and  widening  the 
top,  and  thus  compelling  all  the  other  ants  to  transfer 
themselves  from  the  base  to  the  top.  I  see  that  instead 
of  the  ideal  of  a  Hfe  of  labour  there  has  risen  before  men 
the  ideal  of  the  purse  with  the  never-failing  rouble. 

The  rich,  I  among  them,  employ  every  device  to  confirm 
this  state  of  the  never-failing  rouble,  and  to  enjoy  it, 
move  to  the  city,  where  nothing  is  produced,  but  every- 
thing is  swallowed  up.  The  poor  labouring  man,  who  is 
fleeced  in  order  that  the  rich  man  may  have  this  magic, 
never-faihng  rouble,  pushes  to  the  city  after  him  and 
there  also  takes  up  the  devices,  and  either  arranges  for 
himself  a  condition  in  which  he  is  able  to  make  use  of 
many  things,  with  as  little  work  as  possible,  thus  only 
making  harder  the  state  of  the  labouring  classes ;  or, 
without  having  reached  this  condition,  he  perishes  or  finds 
his  way  among  the  number  of  the  starving  and  freezing 
inmates  of  the  doss-houses,  which  is  increasing  with  un- 
usual rapidity. 

I  belong  to  the  class  of  those  people  who  by  means  of 
all  kinds  of  devices  take  from  the  labouring  classes  the  ne- 
cessities, and  who  with  these  devices  have  created  for  them- 
selves the  magic  never-failing  rouble,  which  tempts  these 
unfortunates.  I  want  to  aid  the  people,  and  so  it  is  clear 
that,  above  all  else,  I  must  not  fleece  them,  as  I  am 
doing  now,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  must  not  tempt 
them.  But  I,  by  aid  of  the  most  complex,  cunning,  evil 
devices,  accumulated  through  the  ages,  have  arranged  for 
myself  the  condition  of  the  proprietor  of  the  never-failing 
rouble,  that  is,  a  condition  in  which  I  can,  without  doing 
any  work  myself,  compel  hundreds  and  thousands  to  work 
for  me,  as  indeed  I  am  doing ;  and  I  imagine  that  I  pity 
people  and  want  to  help  them.  I  am  sitting  on  a  man's 
neck,  choking  him,  and  demanding  that  he  carry  me,  and, 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  97 

without  getting  off  him,  I  assure  myself  and  others  that  I 
am  very  sorry  for  him  and  want  to  alleviate  his  condition 
by  all  possible  means  except  by  getting  off  his  neck. 

And  this  is  so  simple.  If  I  want  to  aid  the  poor,  that 
is,  to  cause  the  poor  not  to  be  poor,  I  must  not  be  pro- 
ductive of  them.  But  as  it  is,  I  by  my  own  choice  give 
roubles,  tens  and  hundreds  of  roubles,  to  the  poor  who 
have  departed  from  the  path  of  life ;  and  in  place  of  these 
roubles  I  take  away  thousands  from  people  who  have  not 
yet  departed  from  this  path,  and  thus  make  them  poor 
and  corrupt  them  even  more. 

That  is  very  simple ;  but  it  was  terribly  difficult  for 
me  to  understand  all  this  without  any  compromises  and 
excuses,  which  might  justify  my  condition.  All  I  had  to 
do  was  to  recognize  my  guilt,  and  everything  which  before 
had  appeared  strange,  compHcated,  obscure,  insoluble, 
now  became  quite  intelligible  and  simple.  Above  all 
else,  the  path  of  my  life  which  resulted  from  this  ex- 
planation, instead  of  being  tangled,  and  insoluble  and 
agonizing,  as  it  had  been  before,  became  simple,  clear, 
and  agreeable. 

Who  am  I,  the  one  who  wants  to  help  people  ?  I  want 
to  help  people,  and  I  get  up  at  noon,  after  a  ^ame  of  vint, 
with  four  candles  on  the  table,  all  worn  out  and  pampered, 
demanding  the  aid  and  service  of  hundreds  of  men,  and  I 
go  to  bring  aid,  —  to  whom  ?  To  people  who  get  up  at 
five,  sleep  on  boards,  live  on  cabbage  and  bread,  know 
how  to  plough,  mow,  fasten  a  helve,  dress  timber,  hitch  a 
horse,  sew,  —  people  who  in  strength,  endurance,  art,  and 
abstemiousness  are  a  hundred  times  stronger  than  I, 
and  I  come  to  aid  them  !  What  else  but  shame  could  I 
have  experienced  when  I  entered  into  communion  with 
these  people  ?  The  weakest  of  them,  a  drunkard,  an 
inmate  of  Kzhanov  House,  whom  they  call  a  loafer,  is  a 
hundred  times  more  industrious  than  I ;  his  balance,  so  to 
speak,  that  is,  the  relation  of  what  he  takes  from  people 


98  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

and  of  what  he  gives  to  them,  is  a  thousand  times  more 
favourable  for  him,  if  I  consider  what  I  take  from  people 
and  what  I  give  them. 

And  it  is  these  people  that  I  go  out  to  help.  I  go  to  help 
the  poor.  Who  is  poor  ?  There  is  no  one  who  is  poorer  than 
I  am.  I  am  a  feeble,  worthless  parasite,  who  can  exist 
only  under  the  most  exclusive  of  conditions,  who  can  exist 
only  if  thousands  will  labour  to  support  this  worthless 
life.  And  I,  the  louse  that  devours  the  leaf  of  a  tree,  want 
to  be  instrumental  in  the  growth  and  health  of  this  tree 
and  want  to  cure  it. 

This  is  the  way  I  pass  my  whole  life  :  I  eat,  talk,  and 
listen  ;  I  eat,  write,  or  read,  that  is,  again  talk  and  listen  ; 
I  eat,  I  play  ;  I  eat,  talk  again,  and  hsten  ;  I  eat  and  go  to 
bed  ;  and  thus  it  is  every  day,  and  I  can  do  nothing  else. 
And,  in  order  that  I^may  be  able  to  do  so,  it  is  necessary 
for  the  janitor,  the  peasant,  the  sculHon,  the  cook,  the 
lackey,  the  coachman,  the  laundress  to  work  from  morning 
until  evening,  to  say  nothing  of  those  labours  of  people 
which  are  necessary  to  furnish  the  coachmen,  the  cooks, 
the  lackeys,  and  the  rest  with  those  tools  and  objects  with 
which  and  over  which  they  work  for  me,  —  the  axes, 
barrels,  brushes,  dishes,  furniture,  glasses,  blacking,  coal- 
oil,  hay,  wood,  meat.  And  all  these  people  work  hard 
the  whole  day  long  and  every  day,  in  order  that  I  may 
be  able  to  talk,  eat,  and  sleep.  And  I,  this  wretched  man, 
imagine  that  I  am  able  to  help  others  and  those  very 
men  who  are  supporting  me. 

What  is  surprising  is  not  that  I  did  not  help  any  one 
and  that  I  felt  ashamed,  but  that  such  an  insipid  idea 
could  have  occurred  to  me.  The  woman  who  tended  the 
sick  old  man  helped  him;  the  peasant  woman  who  cut 
off  a  slice  from  the  bread  which  was  got  from  the  soil 
through  labour  helped  the  mendicant ;  Sem^n  who  gave 
three  kopeks  from  his  earnings  to  the  beggar  helped  the 
beggar,  because  these  three  kopeks  actually  represented 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  99 

his  labour :  but  I  had  not  served  any  one,  had  not  worked 
for  any  one,  and  knew  well  that  my  money  did  not  rep- 
resent my  labour. 

And  so  I  felt  that  in  the  money  itself,  in  the  possession 
of  it,  there  was  something  base  and  immoral,  and  that 
the  money  itself  and  the  fact  that  I  had  it  was  one  of  the 
chief  causes  of  all  the  evils  which  I  saw  before  me, 
and  I  asked  myself :  "  What  is  money  ? " 


xvn. 

Money  !    What  is  money  ? 

Money  represents  labour.  I  have  met  educated  people 
who  asserted  that  money  represents  also  the  labour  of 
him  who  possesses  it.  I  must  confess  that  formerly  I  in 
some  obscure  manner  shared  this  opinion.  But  I  had 
to  go  to  the  bottom  of  what  money  was,  and  so,  to  find 
this  out,  I  turned  to  science. 

Science  says  that  there  is  nothing  unjust  and  prejudicial 
about  money,  that  money  is  a  natural  condition  of  social 
life,  —  necessary :  (1)  for  convenience  of  exchange,  (2)  for 
the  establishment  of  measures  of  value,  (3)  for  saving, 
and  (4)  for  payments.  The  obvious  phenomenon  that,  if 
I  have  in  my  pocket  three  superfluous  roubles  which  are 
of  no  use  to  me,  I  need  only  to  whistle  in  order  to  col- 
lect in  every  civihzed  city  hundreds  cf  men  who  are 
prepared  for  these  three  roubles  to  do  at  my  will  the  hard- 
est, most  detested,  and  most  humiliating  work,  is  not  due 
to  money,  but  to  very  complex  conditions  of  the  economic 
life  of  the  nations.  The  control  exercised  by  one  set  of 
men  over  another  is  not  due  to  money,  but  to  this,  that 
the  labourer  does  not  receive  the  full  value  of  his  labour ; 
and  he  does  not  get  the  full  value  of  his  labour  on 
account  of  the  properties  of  capital,  interest,  wages,  and 
of  the  complex  relations  between  them  and  between  the 
production,  distribution,  and  employment  of  wealth  them- 
selves. 

To  express  myself  in  Russian  fashion,  it  turns  out  that 
people  who  have  money  have  the  right  to  twist  those  who 
have  no  money  into  ropes.     But  science  says  that  this  is 

100 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  101 

a  different  matter.  Science  says  that  in  all  kinds  of  pro- 
ductions three  factors  take  part:  land,  stored-up  labour 
(capital),  and  labour.  From  the  different  relations  of 
these  factors  of  production  among  themselves,  —  from  the 
fact  that  the  first  two  factors  — land  and  capital  —  are  not 
in  the  hands  of  the  working  men,  but  in  those  of  other 
people,  —  from  this  and  from  the  very  complex  combina- 
tions which  arise  from  it  there  follows  the  enslavement 
of  one  set  of  men  by  another. 

What  is  the  cause  of  that  monetary  kingdom  which 
startles  us  all  by  its  injustice  and  cruelty  ?  Why  does 
one  set  of  people  rule  others  by  means  of  money  ?  Sci- 
ence says :  this  is  due  to  the  division  of  the  factors  of 
production  and  the  consequent  combinations,  which 
oppress  the  labourer.  This  answer  has  always  seemed 
strange  to  me,  not  only  in  that  it  leaves  out  one  part  of 
the  question,  namely,  as  regards  the  significance  of  money 
in  the  matter,  —  but  also  by  that  division  of  the  factors 
of  production,  which  to  an  unbiassed  man  always-  appears 
artificial  and  as  not  corresponding  to  reality. 

It  is  asserted  that  in  every  production  three  factors 
take  part,  —  land,  capital,  and  labour,  —  and  in  this  divi- 
sion it  is  understood  that  wealth  (or  its  valuation, — 
money)  is  naturally  subdivided  among  those  who  own 
this  or  that  factor :  the  rent  —  the  value  of  the  land  — 
belongs  to  the  landowner,  the  interest  to  the  capi- 
talist, and  the  wages  for  the  labour  to  the  working 
man. 

Is  this  true  ?  In  the  first  place,  is  it  true  that  three 
factors  take  part  in  every  production  ?  Here,  right  about 
me,  the  production  of  hay  is  taking  place,  while  I  am 
writing  this.  Of  what  does  this  production  consist  ?  I 
am  told :  of  the  land  which  made  the  grass  grow ;  of  the 
capital,  —  the  scythes,  rakes,  forks,  wagons,  necessary  for 
the  making  of  the  hay;  and  of  the  labour.  But  I  see 
that  this  is  not  true.     In  addition  to  the  land,  other 


102  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

factors  take  part  in  the  production  of  the  hay :  the  sun, 
the  water,  the  social  order,  which  kept  this  grass  from 
being  trespassed  upon,  the  knowledge  of  the  working  men, 
their  ability  to  speak  and  understand  words,  and  many 
other  factors  of  production,  which  for  some  reason  are  not 
recognized  by  poHtical  economy. 

The  power  of  the  sun  is  just  as  much  a  factor  of  every 
production  as  the  land,  and  even  more  necessary  than  the 
land.  I  can  imagine  the  condition  of  people  in  which 
(say,  in  the  city)  one  set  of  men  assume  the  right  to  shut 
off  the  sun  from  others  by  means  of  walls  or  trees ;  why 
is  it  not  included  among  the  factors  of  production  ? 
Water  is  another  factor,  which  is  just  as  important  as 
the  land.  The  same  is  true  of  the  air.  I  can  again 
imagine  people  deprived  of  water  and  of  fresh  air,  because 
other  people  arrogate  to  themselves  the  right  to  the  exclu- 
sive possession  of  the  water  and  the  air  which  others 
need.  Social  security  is  another  such  factor;  food  and 
wearing  apparel  are  for  the  working  men  just  such  factors 
of  production,  and  this  is  acknowledged  by  certaio  econo- 
mists. Education,  the  ability  to  speak,  which  gives  the 
possibility  of  applying  a  different  kind  of  work,  is  just 
such  a  factor. 

I  could  fill  a  whole  volume  with  such  omitted  factors 
of  production.  Why,  then,  have  they  chosen  just  those 
three  factors  and  put  them  at  the  basis  of  science  ?  The 
sunlight  and  the  water  may,  just  like  the  land,  be  taken 
as  separate  factors  of  production ;  the  labourer's  food  and 
wearing  apparel,  knowledge  and  its  transmission  may  be 
taken  as  separate  factors  of  production.  Why  are  the 
sunbeams,  the  water,  food,  knowledge,  not  taken  as  sepa- 
rate factors  of  production,  instead  of  only  the  land,  the 
tools  of  labour,  and  the  labour  itself  ?  There  can  be  no 
other  reason  than  that  only  in  rare  cases  do  men  lay 
claim  to  the  right  of  using  the  sunbeams,  water,  air,  food, 
and  the  right  to  speak  and  Hsten,  whereas  in  our  society 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  103 

people  constantly  lay  claim  to  the  use  of  the  land  and  the 
tools  of  labour. 

There  is  no  other  basis,  and  so  I  see,  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  division  of  the  factors  of  production  into  three 
factors  only  is  quite  arbitrary  and  does  not  he  in  the 
essence  of  things  itself.  But,  perhaps,  this  division  is  so 
characteristic  of  men  that  where  economic  relations  form 
themselves,  these  three,  and  only  these  three,  factors  of 
production  are  immediately  pushed  to  the  front.  Let  us 
see  whether  that  is  so. 

I  look  at  those  nearest  to  me,  the  Eussian  colonists, 
of  whom  there  are  a  million.  The  colonists  come  to  some 
new  land,  settle  down  upon  it,  and  begin  to  work,  and  it 
does  not  occur  to  any  one  that  a  man  who  does  not  make 
use  of  the  land  could  claim  any  right  to  it,  and  the  land 
does  not  claim  any  special  rights ;  on  the  contrary,  the 
colonists  consciously  recognize  the  land  as  a  common  pos- 
session, and  they  consider  it  right  for  every  man  to  mow 
and  plough  wherever  he  pleases  and  as  much  ground  as 
he  can  take.  The  colonists  procure  the  tools  of  labour 
for  the  working  of  the  land,  for  the  gardens,  for  the  build- 
ing of  their  houses,  and  it  does  not  even  occur  to  any  one 
that  the  tools  of  labour  can  in  themselves  bring  an 
income,  nor  does  the  capital  lay  claim  to  any  privileges ; 
on  the  contrary,  the  colonists  consciously  recognize  that 
all  interest  for  the  tools  of  labour,  for  grain  loaned,  for 
capital  is  unjust.  The  colonists  work  on  free  land  with 
their  own  tools  or  with  such  as  have  been  loaned  to  them 
without  interest,  each  of  them  working  for  himself,  or 
all  together  for  the  common  good,  and  in  such  a  com- 
mune it  is  impossible  to  find  rents,  or  interest  on  capital 
or  wages. 

Speaking  of  such  a  commune  I  am  not  indulging  in 
reveries,  but  am  describing  what  has  always  taken  place, 
not  only  in  the  case  of  the  Eussian  colonists,  but  also 
everywhere  so  long  as  man's  natural  quality  has  not  been 


104  WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO    THEN? 

violated  by  anything.  I  am  describing  what  to  every 
man  appears  natural  and  sensible.  People  settle  on  the 
land,  and  each  person  takes  hold  of  the  work  which  is 
proper  for  him,  and,  having  elaborated  what  he  needs  for 
his  work,  he  does  his  own  work.  But  if  it  is  more  con- 
venient for  people  to  work  together,  they  form  associa- 
tions ;  but  neither  in  the  farming  in  severalty,  nor  in  the 
associations  will  the  factors  of  production  be  separate,  but 
there  will  be  labour  and  the  necessary  conditions  of 
labour :  the  sun  which  warms  all ;  the  air  which  people 
breathe,  the  water  which  they  drink,  the  land  on  which 
they  work  ;  raiment  on  their  bodies,  food  in  their  bellies ; 
the  crowbar,  the  spade,  the  plough,  the  machine,  with 
which  they  work,  —  and  it  is  evident  that  neither  the  sun- 
beams, nor  the  air,  nor  the  water,  nor  the  earth,  nor  the 
raiment  on  their  bodies,  nor  the  crowbar,  with  which  they 
work,  nor  the  spade,  nor  the  plough,  nor  the  machine,  with 
which  they  work  in  associations,  can  belong  to  any  one 
but  those  who  make  use  of  the  sunbeams,  breathe  the  air, 
drink  the  water,  eat  the  bread,  cover  their  bodies,  and 
work  with  their  spades  or  machines,  because  all  this  is 
needed  by  those  only  who  make  use  of  it. 

When  people  act  in  this  manner,  we  all  see  that  they 
act  as  is  proper  for  men,  that  is,  sensibly.  And  thus,  as 
I  observe  the  economic  relations  of  men  in  the  moment 
of  their  formation,  1  do  not  see  that  the  division  into 
three  factors  of  production  is  proper  to  men.  I  see,  on 
the  contrary,  that  it  is  improper  and  senseless.  But 
perhaps  the  division  into  three  factors  fails  only  in  primi- 
tive human  societies ;  perhaps  it  is  inevitable  with  the 
increase  of  the  population  and  the  evolution  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  this  division  has  taken  place  in  European  society, 
and  we  cannot  help  but  acknowledge  the  accomplished 
fact. 

Let  us  see  whether  this  is  so.  We  are  told  that  in 
European  society  the  division  of  the  factors  of  production 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  105 

has  taken  place ;  that  is,  that  some  people  own  the  land, 
others  the  tools  of  labour,  and  others  again  are  deprived 
both  of  the  land  and  the  tools  of  labour.  The  labourer  is 
deprived  of  the  land  and  of  the  tools  of  labour.  We  are 
so  accustomed  to  this  assertion  that  we  are  no  longer 
startled  by  its  strangeness.  In  this  expression  there  is 
an  inner  contradiction.  The  concept  of  a  labourer  in- 
cludes the  concept  <^  the  land  on  which  he  lives,  and  of 
the  tools  with  which  he  works.  If  he  did  not  live  on  the 
land,  and  did  not  have  any  tools  of  labour,  he  would  not 
be  a  labourer.  There  has  never  been,  and  there  never  can 
be,  a  labourer  who  is  deprived  of  the  land  and  of  the  tools 
of  labour. 

There  cannot  be  a  farmer  without  the  land  on  which 
he  works,  nor  without  a  scythe,  a  cart,  a  horse ;  nor  can 
there  be  a  shoemaker  without  a  house  on  the  land,  without 
the  water,  the  air,  and  the  tools  of  labour,  with  which  he 
works.  If  a  peasant  has  no  land,  no  horse,  and  no  scythe, 
and  a  shoemaker  has  no  water  and  no  awl,  this  means 
that  some  one  has  driven  him  off  the  land  and  has  taken 
away  from  him  or  cheated  him  out  of  his  scythe,  his  cart, 
his  horse,  his  awl ;  but  it  can  nowise  mean  that  there  can 
be  farmers  without  ploughs  and  shoemakers  without  tools. 
As  a  fisherman  is  unthinkable  on  the  land  and  without 
his  tackle  unless  some  one  has  driven  him  off  the  water 
and  has  taken  the  tackle  from  him ;  even  so,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  think  of  a  peasant,  a  shoemaker,  without  the  land 
on  which  he  lives,  and  without  instruments  of  labour, 
unless,  indeed,  some  one  has  driven  him  off  the  land  and 
has  taken  the  tools  away  from  him. 

There  may  be  people  who  are  driven  from  one  plot  of 
earth  to  another,  and  who  have  been  deprived  of  their 
tools  of  labour,  and  who  are  forcibly  compelled  with  other 
people's  tools  of  labour  to  produce  objects  which  they  do 
not  need,  but  this  does  not  mean  that  such  is  the  property 
of  the  production,  but  only  that  there  are  cases  when  the 


106  ^HAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

natural  property  of  production  is  violated.  But  if  we 
accept  as  factors  of  production  everything  of  which  the 
labourer  may  be  deprived  by  another  through  force,  why 
should  we  not  regard  the  claims  to  the  slave's  person  as  a 
factor  of  production  ?  Why  should  we  not  regard  the 
claims  to  the  sun's  rays,  to  the  air,  to  the  water,  as  just 
such  factors  ? 

There  may  appear  a  man  who,  building  up  a  wall,  will 
screen  a  man  from  the  sun,  or  who  will  lead  the  river 
water  into  a  pond  and  thus  poison  the  water ;  there  may 
appear  a  man  who  will  claim  the  whole  man  as  his  chat- 
tel ;  but  neither  pretension,  even  if  it  be  put  into  execu- 
tion through  force,  can  be  recognized  as  a  basis  for  the 
division  of  the  factors  of  production,  and  so  it  is  just  as 
incorrect  to  accept  the  imaginary  right  to  the  land  and  to 
the  tools  of  labour  as  special  factors  of  production,  as  to 
regard  the  imaginary  right  to  the  use  of  the  sun's  rays, 
the  air,  the  water,  and  the  person  of  another  man  as 
special  factors  of  production.  There  may  be  men  who 
will  lay  claim  to  the  land  and  to  the  tools  of  a  man's 
labour,  just  as  there  have  been  men  who  lay  claim  to  the 
labourer's  person,  and  as  there  may  be  men  who  lay  claim 
to  the  exclusive  use  of  the  sun,  the  water,  the  air ;  there 
may  be  men  who  drive  a  labourer  from  place  to  place,  and 
who  by  force  take  away  from  him  the  products  of  his 
labour  as  they  are  manufactured,  and  even  the  tools  of 
his  labour,  and  compel  him  to  work  for  the  master  and 
not  for  himself,  as  is  the  case  in  the  factories, —  all  that 
is  possible :  but  there  can  still  be  no  labourer  without 
land  and  without  tools,  even  as  one  man  cannot  be 
another  man's  chattel,  although  people  have  asserted  for 
a  long  time  that  he  can  be. 

Just  as  the  assertion  of  the  right  -o  another  man's 
property  could  not  deprive  a  slave  of  his  inborn  property 
of  seeking  his  own  good,  and  not  that  of  the  master,  even 
so  now  the  assertion  of  the  right  to  the  possession  of  the 


WHAT   SHALL  WE   DO   THEN"?  107 

land  and  to  the  tools  of  other  people's  labour  cannot 
deprive  the  labourer  of  each  man's  innate  right  to  live  on 
the  land  and  work  with  his  own  tools  or  with  those  of  the 
commune,  jn  order  to  produce  what  he  considers  useful 
for  himself. 

All  that  science,  observing  the  present  economic  con- 
dition, can  say  is  this,  that  there  exist  claims,  which 
certain  people  lay  to  the  land  and  the  tools  of  working 
men's  labour,  and  in  consequence  of  which,  for  a  part  of 
these  working  men  (by  no  means  all),  the  conditions  of 
production  characteristic  of  man  are  violated  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  labourers  are  deprived  of  the  land  and  of 
the  tools  of  labour  and  are  driven  to  the  use  of  other 
people's  tools  of  labour ;  but  nowise  this,  that  this  acci- 
dental violation  of  the  law  of  production  is  itself  the  law 
of  production. 

In  affirming  that  the  division  of  the  factors  of  pro- 
duction is  the  basic  law  of  production,  the  economist  does 
precisely  what  a  zoologist  would  do,  who,  seeing  a  large 
number  of  siskins  with  clipped  wings  in  little  houses, 
should  conclude  from  this  that  the  little  house  and  the 
small  water-pail,  which  is  lifted  on  rails,  are  the  most 
essential  condition  of  the  life  of  tlie  birds,  and  that  the 
life  of  the  birds  is  composed  of  these  three  factors.  No 
matter  how  many  siskins  with  clipped  wings  there  may 
be  in  little  card  houses,  the  zoologist  cannot  recognize  the 
card  houses  as  a  natural  quality  of  the  birds.  No  matter 
how  many  labourers  may  be  driven  from  their  place  and, 
deprived  of  the  productions  and  the  tools  of  their  labour, 
the  labourer's  natural  property  of  living  on  the  land  and 
producing  with  his  tools  what  he  pleases  will  always  be 
the  same. 

There  are  pretensions  which  some  people  have  to  the 
labourer's  land  and  tools  of  labour,  even  as  in  ancient 
times  there  existed  the  pretensions  of  some  people  to  the 
persons  of  others ;  but  under  no  condition  can  there  be  a 


108  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

division  of  men  into  masters  and  slaves,  such  as  they 
wished  to  establish  in  the  ancient  world,  and  there  can 
under  no  conditions  be  a  division  of  the  factors  of  produc- 
tion into  land  and  capital,  such  as  the  economists  want  to 
estabHsh  in  modem  society. 

It  is  these  illegal  pretensions  which  some  people  have 
to  the  liberty  of  others  that  science  calls  natural  proper- 
ties of  production.  Instead  of  taking  its  bases  in  the 
natural  properties  of  human  societies,  science  took  them 
in  a  specific  case  and,  wishing  to  justify  this  specific  case, 
recognized  one  man's  right  to  the  land,  which  feeds 
another,  and  to  the  tools  of  labour,  with  which  another 
works,  that  is,  it  recognized  a  right  which  never  existed 
and  never  can  exist,  and  which  bears  a  contradiction  in 
its  very  expression,  because  the  right  to  the  land  claimed 
by  a  man  who  does  not  work  on  the  land  is  in  reality 
nothing  but  the  right  to  make  use  of  the  land  which  I  do 
not  use ;  and  the  right  to  the  tools  of  labour  is  nothing, 
but  the  right  to  work  with  tools  with  which  I  do  not 
work. 

By  its  division  of  the  factors  of  production,  science 
affirms  that  the  natural  condition  of  the  labourer  is  that 
unnatural  condition  in  which  he  is  ;  just  as  in  the  ancient 
world  they  affirmed,  in  dividing  people  into  citizens  and 
slaves,  that  the  unnatural  condition  of  the  slaves  is  a 
natural  property  of  man.  This  division,  which  is  accepted 
by  science  only  in  order  to  justify  the  existing  evil,  which 
is  placed  by  it  at  the  basis  of  all  its  investigations,  has 
had  this  effect,  that  science  tries  in  vain  to  give  explana- 
tions of  existing  phenomena,  and,  denying  the  clearest 
and  simplest  answers  to  questions  that  present  themselves 
to  it,  gives  answers  which  are  devoid  of  contents. 

The  question  of  economic  science  is  as  follows :  What 
is  the  cause  of  this,  that  some  men,  who  have  land  and 
capital,  are  able  to  enslave  those  who  have  no  land 
and  no  capital?     The  answer  which  presents  itself   to 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  109 

common  sense  is  this,  that  it  is  due  to  the  money,  which 
has  the  power  of  enslaving  people.  But  science  denies 
this  and  says :  This  is  not  due  to  the  property  of  money, 
but  because  some  have  land  and  capital,  and  others  have 
not.  We  ask  why  people  who  have  land  and  capital 
enslave  those  who  have  none,  and  we  are  told :  Because 
they  have  land  and  capital.  But  that  is  precisely  w^hat 
we  want  to  know.  The  privation  of  the  land  and  of  the 
tools  of  labour  is  that  very  enslavement.  The  answer  is 
like  this :   Facit  dormire  quia  hahet  virtutem  dormitivam. 

But  life  does  not  cease  putting  its  essential  question, 
and  even  science  itself  sees  it  and  tries  to  answer  it,  but 
is  absolutely  unable  to  do  so  as  long  as  it  rests  on  its  fun- 
damental principles,  and  keeps  moving  about  in  its  magic 
circle.  In  order  to  be  able  to  do  so,  it  must  first  of  all 
renounce  its  false  division  of  the  factors  of  production, 
that  is,  the  recognition  of  the  consequences  of  phenomena 
as  their  causes,  and  must  seek,  at  first  the  nearer,  and 
then  the  more  remote,  cause  of  those  phenomena  which 
form  the  subject  of  its  investigations.  Science  must 
answer  the  question  as  to  what  the  cause  is  of  the  fact 
that  some  people  are  deprived  of  the  land  and  of  the  tools 
of  labour,  while  others  own  them,  or,  what  cause  produces 
the  alienation  of  the  land  and  of  the  tools  of  labour  from 
those  who  work  the  land  and  employ  the  tools. 

The  moment  science  will  put  to  itself  this  question, 
there  will  appear  entirely  new  considerations,  which  will 
turn  upside  down  all  the  propositions  of  the  former  quasi- 
science,  which  moves  in  a  hopeless  circle  of  assertions  that 
the  wretched  condition  of  the  labourer  is  due  to  its  being 
wretched.  To  simple  people  it  seems  indubitable  that 
the  nearest  cause  of  the  enslavement  of  one  class  of  men 
by  another  is  money.  But  science,  denying  this,  says 
money  is  only  an  instrument  of  ex:change  which  has 
nothing  in  common  with  the  enslavement  of  people.  Let 
us  see  whether  this  is  so. 


xvm. 

Whence  does  money  come?  Under  what  condition 
does  a  nation  always  have  money,  and  under  what  con- 
ditions do  we  know  nations  who  do  not  use  money  ? 

A  tribe  Hves  in  Africa,  or  in  AustraHa,  as  anciently  the 
Scythians  or  Dr^vlyans  lived.  The  tribe  lives,  ploughing, 
raising  cattle,  planting  gardens.  We  hear  of  it  only  when 
history  begins;  but  history  begins  with  the  incursion  of 
conquerors.  The  conquerors  always  do  one  and  the  same 
thing :  they  take  from  the  tribe  everything  they  can,  — 
its  cattle,  its  grain,  its  stuffs,  and  even  captives,  and  carry 
it  all  off.  A  few  years  later  the  conquerors  return,  but 
the  tribe  has  not  ye  recovered  from  its  desolation,  and 
there  is  nothing  to  take  away,  so  the  conquerors  invent 
another,  a  better  mefjiod  for  exploiting  the  forces  of  this 
tribe. 

These  methods  are  very  simple  and  occur  naturally  to 
all  people.  The  first  ipaethod  is  personal  slavery.  This 
method  has  the  inconvenience  of  demanding  the  manage- 
ment of  all  the  working  forces  of  the  tribe,  and  the 
feeding  of  all,  and  so  there  naturally  presents  itself  a 
second  method,  —  of  leaving  the  tribe  on  its  land,  but 
recognizing  it  as  belonging  to  the  conquerors  and  distrib- 
uting it  to  the  retainers,  in  order  to  exploit  the  tribe's 
labour  through  the  retainers.  But  this  method  has  also 
its  inconveniences.  The  retainers  have  to  look  after  all 
the  productions  of  the  tribe,  and  a  third  method,  just  as 
primitive  as  the  first  two,  is  introduced :  it  is  the  peremp- 
tory demand  of  a  term  tribute  which  the  conquered  have 
to  pay. 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN  t  111 

The  aim  of  the  conquerors  consists  in  taking  from  the 
conquered  as  many  productions  of  their  labour  as  possible. 
It  is  evident  that,  in  order  to  be  able  to  take  as  much  as 
possible,  the  conqueror  must  take  such  objects  as  are  of 
the  highest  value  among  the  people  of  thi&  iribe,  and 
vs^hich,  at  the  same  time,  are  not  bulky  and  inconvenient 
to  store,  —  pelts,  gold.  And  so  the  conquerors  generally 
impose  a  term  tribute  in  pelts  or  in  gold  on  each  family 
or  gens,  and  by  means  of  this  tribute  in  the  most  con- 
venient way  exploit  the  tools  of  labour  of  this  tribe.  The 
pelts  and  the  gold  are  nearly  all  taken  from  the  tribe,  and 
so  the  conquered  have  to  sell  to  one  another  and  to  the 
conqueror  and  his  retainers  everything  they  have  for 
gold. 

Precisely  this  took  place  in  antiquity  and  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  is  taking  place  now.  In  the  ancient  world, 
where  one  nation  was  frequently  conquered  by  another, 
and  where  the  consciousness  of  the  human  equality  of 
men  was  absent,  personal  slavery  was  the  most  popular 
means  of  enslavement  practised  by  one  set  of  men  agaiast 
another,  and  in  the  personal  slavery  lay  the  centre  of 
gravity  of  this  enslavement.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the 
feudal  system,  that  is,  the  territorial  possession  which  is 
connected  with  it,  and  the  vassalage  partially  take  the 
place  of  slavery,  and  the  centre  of  gravity  of  enslavement 
is  transferred  from  the  person  to  the  land.  In  modern 
times,  since  the  discovery  of  America  and  the  develop- 
ment of  trade  and  the  influx  of  gold,  which  is  accepted 
as  the  universal  money  standard,  the  monetary  tribute 
becomes,  with  the  enforcement  of  the  political  power,  the 
chief  instrument  for  the  enslavement  of  men,  and  upon  it 
all  the  economic  relations  of  men  are  based.  In  a  volume 
of  literary  productions  there  is  an  article  by  Professor 
Yanzhul,  which  describes  the  latest  history  of  the  Fiji 
Islands.  If  I  tried  to  invent  a  most  telling  illustration 
of  how  in  our  time  the  peremptory  demand  of  money  has 


112  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

become  the  chief  instrument  for  the  enslavement  of  one 
class  of  people  by  another,  I  could  not  discover  one  which 
would  be  more  glaring  and  more  convincing  than  this  true 
story,  which  is  based  on  documentary  evidence  and  took 
place  recently. 

On  certain  islands  of  the  South  Sea,  in  Polynesia,  there 
lives  the  Fiji  nation.  The  whole  group  of  the  islands, 
says  Professor  Yanzhul,  consists  of  tiny  islands  which 
approximately  cover  a  territory  of  forty  thousand  square 
miles.  Only  half  of  the  islands  are  inhabited,  by  a  popu- 
lation of  150,000  natives  and  fifteen  hundred  whites.  The 
natives  have  long  since  come  out  of  their  savage  state, 
excel  in  ability  all  the  other  natives  of  Polynesia,  and 
represent  a  nation  capable  of  work  and  of  development, 
which  they  have  proved  by  having  lately  become  good 
farmers  and  stock-raisers. 

The  inhabitants  were  prosperous,  but  in  1859  the  new 
kingdom  found  itself  in  a  desperate  state.  The  people 
of  the  Fiji  Islands  and  their  representative,  Cacabo,  needed 
money.  The  sum  of  f 45,000  was-  wanted  by  the  Fiji 
kingdom,  in  order  to  pay  a  contribution  or  damages,  which 
the  United  States  of  North  America  demanded  for  certain 
violence  which,  it  was  claimed,  the  Fijians  had  shown  to 
some  citizens  of  the  American  republic.  For  this  purpose 
the  Americans  sent  a  squadron,  which  suddenly  seized  a 
few  of  the  better  islands  as  a  pledge,  and  even  threatened 
to  bombard  and  destroy  the  colonies,  if  the  contribution 
should  not  be  handed  to  the  representatives  of  America 
at  a  certain  time. 

The  Americans  were  among  the  first  colonists  to  appear, 
with  the  missionaries,  in  Fiji.  Selecting  or  seizing,  under 
one  pretext  or  another,  the  best  plots  of  ground  on  the 
islands,  and  there  laying  out  cotton  and  coffee  plantations, 
the  Americans  hired  whole  crowds  of  natives,  binding 
them  by  contracts,  which  were  not  familiar  to  the  savages, 
or  acting  upon  them  through  especial  contractors  or  pur- 


WHAT   SHALL    WE   DO   THEN?  113 

veyors  of  live  chattel.  Conflicts  between  such  planters 
and  the  natives,  upon  whom  they  looked  as  slaves,  were 
inevitable,  and  it  was  some  of  these  that  served  as  a  cause 
for  the  demand  of  a  contribution  by  America. 

In  spite  of  its  prosperity,  Fiji  has  almost  down  to  our 
time  preserved  the  so-called  system  of  payment  in  kind, 
which  in  Europe  was  current  only  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
No  money  was  in  circulation  among  the  natives,  and  the 
whole  commerce  had  exclusively  the  character  of  barter ; 
commodity  was  exchanged  for  commodity,  and  the  few 
public  and  governmental  levies  were  made  in  country 
produce.  What  were  the  Fijians  and  their  king  Cacabo 
to  do,  when  the  Americans  categorically  demanded  $45,- 
000,  under  threat  of  the  most  summary  consequences  in 
case  of  their  non-compliance  ?  For  the  Fijians  the  figure 
itself  was  something  inaccessible,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
money,  which  they  had  never  seen  in  such  a  large  sum. 

Cacabo  took  counsel  with  the  other  chiefs,  and  decided 
to  turn  to  the  Queen  of  England.  At  first  he  asked 
her  to  take  the  islands  under  her  protection,  and  later 
simply  to  annex  them.  But  the  English  were  cautious 
in  reply  to  this  request,  and  were  in  no  hurry  to  rescue 
the  semi-savage  monarch  from  his  difficulty.  Instead  of 
a  direct  answer,  they  fitted  out  a  special  expedition  in 
1860,  for  the  purpose  of  investigating  the  Fiji  islands, 
so  as  to  decide  whether  it  was  worth  while  to  annex 
them  to  the  British  possessions,  and  to  spend  money  in 
order  to  satisfy  the  American  creditors. 

In  the  meantime  the  American  government  con- 
tinued to  insist  on  payment,  and  retained  as  a  pledge 
several  of  the  best  points  in  its  actual  possession,  and, 
having  gained  an  insight  into  the  national  wealth,  in- 
creased the  former  145,000  to  190,000  and  threatened  to 
increase  even  this  sum,  if  Cacabo  did  not  pay  it  at  once. 
Hard  pressed  on  all  sides,  poor  Cacabo,  who  was  un- 
acquainted with  the  European  methods  of  credit  trans- 


114  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

actions,  began,  with  the  advice  of  European  colonists,  to 
look  for  money  in  Melbourne,  asking  it  of  the  merchants, 
under  any  and  all  conditions,  even  if  he  had  to  yield  the 
whole  kingdom  to  private  individuals. 

Here,  in  Melbourne,  a  commercial  company  was  formed 
in  reply  to  Cacabo's  appeal.  This  stock  company,  which 
took  the  name  of  the  Polynesian  Company,  made  a  pact 
with  the  rulers  of  the  Fiji  Islands,  upon  conditions  which 
were  exceedingly  favourable  to  itself.  Taking  upon  itself 
the  debt  to  the  American  government  and  binding  itself  to 
pay  it  off  in  instalments,  the  company  received  for  it, 
according  to  the  ■  first  agreement,  one  hundred  thousand, 
and  later  two  hundred  thousand,  acres  of  the  best  land  of 
its  own  choice,  the  freedom  for  all  times  from  all  taxes 
and  revenues  for  all  its  factories,  plants,  and  colonies,  and 
the  exclusive  right  for  a  considerable  time  to  estabHsh 
banks  of  issue,  with  the  privilege  of  an  unlimited  issue  of 
notes. 

From  the  time  of  this  pact,  which  was  conclusively 
settled  in  1868,  the  Fijians  were  confronted,  side  by  side 
with  their  local  government,  with  Cacabo  at  its  head,  by 
a  powerful  commercial  organization,  with  extensive  terri- 
torial possessions  on  all  the  islands,  and  with  a  decisive 
influence  in  the  government.  Heretofore  Cacabo's  govern- 
ment had  been  satisfied,  for  its  necessities,  with  those 
material  means  which  consisted  in  all  kinds  of  levies  in 
kind,  and  an  insignificant  revenue  from  customs  for  im- 
ported goods.  After  the  conclusion  of  the  pact  and  the 
foundation  of  the  powerful  Polynesian  Company,  its  finan- 
cial condition  was  changed.  A  considerable  part  of  the 
best  land  in  the  possessions  passed  over  to  the  company, 
and  so  the  taxes  were  diminished ;  on  the  other  hand,  as 
we  know,  the  company  had  obtained  a  grant  of  a  free 
import  and  export  of  all  commodities,  by  which  the  reve- 
nue from  customs  was  also  reduced.  The  natives,  that  is 
ninety-nine  hundredths  of  the  population,  had  always  been 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  115 

poor  contributors  to  the  customs  revenue,  as  they  hardly 
used  any  European  commodities,  except  a  few  stuffs  and 
metal  objects ;  but  now,  since  by  the  grant  to  the  Poly- 
nesian Company  the  wealthier  Europeans  were  freed  from 
the  customs  revenue,  the  income  of  King  Cacabo  became 
completely  insignificant,  and  he  had  to  bethink  himself 
of  its  increase. 

And  so  Cacabo  began  to  take  counsel  with  his  white 
friends  as  to  how  he  might  avert  the  calamity,  and  these 
advised  him  to  introduce  the  first  direct  levy  in  the 
country,  and,  no  doubt  in  order  to  make  it  as  little  cum- 
bersome for  himself  as  possible,  it  was  to  be  in  the  shape 
of  a  monetary  contribution.  The  levy  was  established  in 
the  form  of  a  universal  or  head  tax,  to  the  amount  of  one 
pound  for  each  man  and  four  shillings  for  each  woman  on 
all  the  islands. 

As  we  have  said,  payment  in  kind  and  barter  even  now 
persist  in  the  Eiji  Islands.  Very  few  natives  possess  any 
money.  Their  wealth  consists  exclusively  in  all  kinds 
of  raw  products  and  flocks,  and  not  in  money.  But  the 
new  tax  demanded  that,  at  certain  stated  periods  of  time, 
money  be  paid,  which,  when  added  up,  amounted  to  a 
considerable  sum  for  a  head  of  a  native  family.  Here- 
tofore the  native  had  been  accustomed  to  no  individual 
imposts  in  favour  of  the  government,  except  personal 
obhgations;  all  the  levies  that  were  made  were  paid  by 
the  Commune  or  the  village  to  which  he  belonged  from 
the  common  fields,  from  which  he  received  his  main 
income.  There  was  but  one  way  left  for  him,  —  to  seek 
money  from  the  white  colonists,  that  is,  to  turn  either  to 
the  trader,  or  the  planter,  who  had  what  he  needed, — 
money. 

To  the  first  he  was  compelled  to  sell  his  products  at 
any  price,  since  the  collector  of  taxes  demanded  the 
money  by  a  given  time ;  or  he  had  to  borrow  money 
against   some   future  product,  a  circumstance  which,  of 


116  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

course,  the  trader  made  use  of  in  order  to  demand  un- 
scrupulous interest ;  or  he  had  to  turn  to  the  planter  and 
sell  him  his  labour,  that  is,  turn  labourer.  But  the  wages, 
no  doubt  on  account  of  the  great  simultaneous  supply, 
turned  out  to  be  very  low  in  the  Fiji  Islands,  according 
to  the  statements  of  the  present  administration,  at  about 
one  shilling  a  week,  or  two  pounds  twelve  shillings  a 
year;  consequently,  in  order  merely  to  pay  the  tax  for 
himself,  to  say  nothing  of  his  family,  a  Fijian  was  com- 
pelled to  abandon  his  home,  his  family,  his  own  land,  and 
his  farm,  and,  often  settling  far  away,  on  some  other 
island,  to  sell  himself  to  a  planter  for  at  least  six  months 
in  order  to  gain  the  one  pound  necessary  for  the  payment 
of  the  new  tax ;  but  for  the  payment  of  the  taxes  for  his 
whole  family  he  was  compelled  to  look  to  other  means. 

The  result  of  this  order  can  be  easily  imagined.  From 
the  150,000  subjects  Cacabo  collected  only  <£ 6,000;  and 
so  there  begins  an  intensified  extortion  of  taxes,  which 
was  unknown  before,  and  a  series  of  compulsory  measures. 
The  local  administration,  incorruptible  before,  very  soon 
made  common  cause  with  the  planters,  who  began  to 
manage  the  country.  For  arrears  the  Fijians  were  taken 
to  court,  and  were  sentenced,  in  addition  to  the  payment 
of  the  costs,  to  incarceration  for  periods  of  not  less  than 
six  months.  The  r6le  of  these  prisons  were  played  by 
the  plantations  of  the  first  white  man  who  was  willing  to 
pay  the  tax  and  the  legal  cost  for  the  defendant.  In  this 
manner  the  whites  had  an  abundant  supply  of  cheap  labour 
in  any  quantity  desired.  At  first  this  compulsory  farming 
out  was  permitted  for  the  period  of  six  months,  but  later 
on  the  venal  judges  found  it  possible  to  send  a  man  to 
work  for  eighteen  months,  and  then  to  renew  their 
decree. 

Very  soon,  in  the  period  of  a  few  years,  the  picture  of 
the  economic  condition  of  Fiji  was  completely  changed. 
Whole   prosperous  districts  were  half  depleted  of  their 


WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO    THEN?  117 

population  and  extremely  impoverished.  The  whole  male 
population,  except  the  old  men  and  the  feeble,  were  work- 
ing away  from  their  homes,  on  the  plantations  of  the 
whites,  in  order  to  provide  themselves  with  the  money 
necessary  for  the  payment  of  the  tax  or  to  satisfy  the 
decree  of  the  court.  The  women  in  Fiji  do  hardly  any 
agricultural  labour,  and  so,  in  the  absence  of  their  hus- 
bands, the  farms  were  neglected  or  entirely  abandoned. 
In  a  few  years  half  the  population  of  Fiji  were  turned 
into  slaves  of  the  white  colonists. 

To  alleviate  their  condition,  the  Fijians  once  more 
turned  to  England.  A  new  petition,  covered  with  a  large 
number  of  signatures  of  the  most  prominent  persons  and 
chiefs,  and  asking  to  be  annexed  to  England,  made  its 
appearance  and  was  handed  to  the  British  consul.  By 
this  time  England,  thanks  to  its  learned  expeditions,  had 
had  time,  not  only  to  study,  but  also  to  measure  the 
islands,  and  in  due  manner  to  appreciate  the  natural 
wealth  of  this  beautiful  corner^  of  the  globe.  On  account 
of  all  this  the  negotiations  were  this  time  crowned  with 
full  success,  and  in  1874  England,  to  the  great  dissatis- 
faction of  the  American  planters,  entered  into  possession 
of  the  Fiji  Islands,  by  annexing  them  to  its  colonies. 

Cacabo  died,  and  a  small  pension  was  decreed  to  his 
successors.  The  government  of  the  islands  was  entrusted 
to  Sir  Eobinson,  the  governor  of  New  South  Wales.  In 
the  first  year  of  its  annexation  to  England,  Fiji  did  not 
have  its  administration,  but  was  under  the  influence  of 
Sir  Eobinson,  who  appointed  an  administrator  for  it.  On 
taking  the  islands  into  its  hands,  the  English  government 
had  to  solve  a  difficult  problem,  —  to  satisfy  the  various 
expectations  from  it.  The  natives  naturally  expected 
first  of  all  the  abolition  of  the  hateful  head  tax ;  but  the 
white  colonists  (the  Americans)  looked  upon  the  British 
rule  partly  with  suspicion,  and  partly  (those  of  British 
origin)  expected  all  kinds  of  benefits,  for  example,  the 


118  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO   THEN? 

recognition  of  their  rule  over  the  natives,  the  approval  of 
their  land-grabbing,  etc. 

The  English  government,  however,  proved  itself  to  be 
equal  to  the  task,  and  its  first  action  was  the  abolition 
for  ever  of  the  head  tax,  which  had  created  the  slavery 
of  the  natives  to  the  advantage  of  a  few  colonists.  But 
here  Sir  Kobinson  was  confronted  with  a  difficult  dilemma. 
It  became  necessary  to  do  away  with  the  head  tax,  to 
save  themselves  from  which  the  Eijians  had  turned  to  the 
Enghsh  government ;  at  the  same  time,  according  to  the 
rule  of  the  English  colonial  policy,  the  colonies  were  to 
support  themselves,  that  is,  it  was  necessary  to  find  local 
means  to  meet  the  expenditures  of  the  administration. 
But,  with  the  abolition  of  the  head  tax,  all  the  income  of 
Fiji  (from  the  customs  dues)  did  not  exceed  £6,000, 
whereas  the  expenditures  of  the  administration  demanded 
at  the  least  X 70,000  a  year.  And  so  Kobinson,  after 
having  abolished  the  money  tax,  invented  the  labour  tax, 
which  the  Fijians  had  to  pay  in  work,  but  this  did  not 
net  the  £70,000  necessary  for  the  support  of  Eobinson 
and  his  assistants. 

The  thing  did  not  go  until  the  appointment  of  a  new 
governor,  Gordon,  who,  to  get  out  of  the  inhabitants  the 
money  necessary  for  his  support  and  for  that  of  his  assist- 
ants, took  it  into  his  head  that  he  would  not  demand  any 
money  until  a  sufficient  amount  of  it  should  be  in  circula- 
tion in  the  islands,  but  that  he  would  take  the  products 
from  the  natives  and  would  sell  them  himself. 

This  tragic  episode  from  the  life  of  the  Fijians  is  the 
clearest  and  best  indication  of  what  money  is  and  in  what 
its  significance  lies.  Here  everything  was  expressed :  the 
first  fundamental  condition  of  the  enslavement  —  the  can- 
non, menaces,  murder,  and  seizure  of  land,  and  the  chief 
means  —  money,  which  has  taken  the  place  of  all  the 
other  means.  What  in  the  historical  sketch  of  the 
economic  development  of  the  nations  has  to  be  followed 


WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  119 

out  in  the  course  of  centuries,  is  here,  where  the  forms  of 
the  monetary  violence  are  worked  out  completely,  concen- 
trated in  one  decade.  The  drama  begins  by  this,  that  the 
American  government  sends  its  ships  with  loaded  cannon 
to  the  shores  of  the  islands,  whose  inhabitants  it  wants  to 
enslave.  The  pretext  of  this  threat  is  money,  but  the 
beginning  of  the  drama  is  with  the  cannon  which  are 
directed  upon  all  the  inhabitants,  —  women,  children,  old 
men,  —  people  who  are  not  guilty  of  anything,  and  this 
phenomenon  is  now  repeated  in  America,  in  China, 
in  Central  Asia.  The  beginning  of  the  drama  is  this, 
"Your  money  or  your  life,"  which  is  repeated  in  the 
history  of  all  the  conquests  of  all  the  nations ;  $45,000 
and  then  190,000,  or  slaughter.  But  there  are  no 
190,000.  The  Americans  have  them.  And  so  the  second 
act  of  the  drama  begins:  it  is  necessary  to  put  off,  to 
exchange  the  bloody,  terrible,  concentrated  slaughter 
for  less  noticeable,  though  more  prolonged,  sufferings. 
And  the  little  nation  by  its  representative  seeks  a  means 
for  exchanging  slaughter  for  enslavement  to  money.  It 
borrows  money,  and  the  forms  of  the  enslavement  of  men 
by  means  of  money  are  worked  out. 

This  method  begins  at  once  to  act  like  a  disciplined 
army,  and  in  five  years  the  work  is  done :  the  people  have 
lost  not  only  the  right  to  use  their  land,  but  also  their 
property  and  their  freedom ;  the  men  are  slaves. 

The  third  act  begins.  The  situation  is  exceedingly 
hard,  and  the  unfortunate  people  hear  the  rumour  that  it 
is  possible  to  change  masters  and  go  into  another  slavery. 
(Of  liberation  from  the  slavery  which  the  money  imposes 
there  is  no  longer  a  thought.)  And  the  little  nation  in- 
vites another  master,  to  whom  it  abandons  itself  with  the 
request  that  it  improve  its  condition.  The  English  come 
and  see  that  the  possession  of  these  islands  makes  it  pos- 
sible for  them  to  feed  some  drones  who  have  been  breed- 
ing in  too  great  a  quantity,  and  the  English  government 


120  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

takes  these  islands  with  their  inhabitants,  but  not  in  the 
form  of  personal  slaves :  it  does  not  even  take  the  land 
and  does  not  distribute  it  to  its  assistants.  Those  old 
methods  are  not  needed  now.  All  that  is  necessary  is 
that  they  should  pay  a  tribute,  one  that  will,  on  the  one 
hand,  be  sufficiently  large  to  keep  the  labourers  in  perpet- 
ual slavery,  and,  on  the  other,  will  feed  well  the  multitude 
of  drones. 

The  inhabitants  have  to  pay  <£ 70,000.  This  is  the 
fundamental  condition  under  which  England  agrees  to 
ransom  the  Fijians  from  American  slavery,  and  this  is 
at  the  same  time  the  one  necessary  thing  for  the  complete 
enslavement  of  the  inhabitants.  But  it  turns  out  that 
the  Fijians  are  not  able  under  their  present  condition  to 
pay  the  X  70,000.  The  demand  is  excessive.  The  Eng- 
lish for  a  time  modify  the  demand  and  take  a  part  in 
kind,  in  order,  in  proper  time,  when  the  money  shall  be 
in  circulation,  to  increase  the  demand  to  its  full  norm. 

England  does  not  act  like  the  former  company,  whose 
procedure  may  be  compared  with  the  first  arrival  of 
savage  conquerors  in  the  country  of  savage  inhabitants, 
when  they  have  but  the  one  thought  of  carrying  off  as 
much  as  possible  and  going  away  again;  England  acts 
like  a  more  far-sighted  enslaver :  it  does  not  all  at  once 
kill  the  hen  with  the  golden  eggs,  but  does  not  mind  feed- 
ing her,  since  it  knows  that  she  is  a  good  layer^  At  first 
it  slackens  the  reins  for  its  own  benefit,  in  order  later  to 
pull  them  tight  for  all  time  and  to  bring  the  Fijians 
to  that  condition  of  monetary  slavery  in  which  all  the 
European  and  civilized  nations  are,  and  from  which  no 
liberation  is  in  sight. 

Money  is  a  harmless  medium  of  exchange,  but  certainly 
not  when  the  shores  of  the  country  are  lined  with  loaded 
cannon,  which  are  directed  upon  the  inhabitants.  The 
moment  money  is  levied  by  force,  under  the  protection 
of  guns,  there  is  inevitably  repeated  what  took  place  on 


WHAT   SHALL  WE   DO    THEN?  121 

the  Fiji  Islands,  and  what  has  taken  place  everywhere 
and  at  all  times,  —  in  the  case  of  the  princes  and  the 
Dr^vlyans,  and  of  all  the  governments  and  their  nations. 
People  who  have  the  power  to  employ  force  against  others 
will  do  so  by  means  of  the  extortion  of  a  sum  of  money, 
which  compels  the  people  on  whom  the  extortion  is  prac- 
tised to  become  the  slaves  of  the  extortioners. 

Besides,  there  will  take  place  what  took  place  in  the 
case  of  the  English  and  the  Fijians,  namely,  that  the  ex- 
tortioners will,  in  their  demand  for  money,  be  more  likely 
to  transcend  the  limit  at  which  the  sum  of  money  de- 
manded has  been  set,  in  order  to  hasten  the  enslavement, 
than  not  to  come  up  to  it.  They  will  reach  the  limit 
without  crossing  it  only  in  case  of  a  moral  sentiment,  and 
they  will  always  reach  it,  even  though  the  sentiment  may 
exist,  if  they  are  in  want.  But  the  governments  will 
always  cross  this  limit,  in  the  first  place,  because,  as  we 
know,  the  governments  themselves  are  in  extreme  need, 
due  to  the  wars  and  to  the  necessity  of  offering  stipends 
to  their  accompHces. 

All  the  governments  are  always  in  insolvable  debt,  and, 
even  if  they  wished  to  do  otherwise,  cannot  help  but  carry 
out  the  rule  promulgated  by  a  Russian  statesman  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  that  it  is  necessary  to  shear  the  peas- 
ant and  not  give  him  a  chance  to  grow  his  hair.  All  the 
governments  are  in  insolvable  debt,  and  this  debt  in  its 
totality  (not  counting  its  accidental  decrease  in  England 
and  in  America)  grows  from  year  to  year  in  a  terrifying, 
progression.  Even  so  grow  the  budgets,  that  is,  the  ne- 
cessity of  fighting  other  extortioners  and  giving  stipends 
in  money  and  land  to  the  assistants  in  the  extortion, 
and  in  a  similar  way  does  the  land  value  grow. 

The  wages  do  not  grow  according  to  the  law  of  rents, 
but  because  there  exists  a  state  and  land  tribute,  the  pur- 
pose of  which  is  to  take  from  the  people  all  their  surplus, 
so  that  for  the  fulfilment  of  this  demand  they  may  sell 


122  WHAT   SHALL  WE   DO   THEN? 

their  labour,  because  the  exploitation  of  this  labour  is  the 
aim  of  the  imposition  of  a  tribute.  Now  the  exploitation 
of  this  labour  is  possible  only  when  a  greater  aggregate 
amount  of  money  is  demanded  than  the  labourers  can 
give  without  depriving  themselves  of  their  means  of  sup- 
port. The  raising  of  the  scale  of  wages  would  destroy 
the  possibility  of  slavery,  and  so  it  can  never  be  raised  so 
long  as  there  is  any  violence.  It  is  this  simple  and  intel- 
ligible action  of  one  set  of  men  upon  another  that  the 
economists  call  an  iron  law ;  but  the  instrument  with 
which  this  action  is  produced  they  call  a  medium  of 
exchange. 

Money,  this  harmless  medium  of  exchange,  is  needed 
by  men  in  their  relations  among  themselves.  Where 
there  does  not  exist  a  violent  demand  for  a  monetary 
tribute,  there  has  never  been  any  money  in  its  modem 
significance,  and  there  could  have  been  none,  but  it  has 
always  been,  and  it  always  wiU.  be,  as  it  is  with  the 
Fijians,  the  Kirgizes,  the  Africans,  the  Phoenicians,  and 
in  general  with  people  who  do  not  pay  any  taxes :  there 
we  have  the  direct  exchange  of  objects  for  objects,  and 
there  the  accidental  standards  of  values  are  sheep,  furs, 
hides,  shells.  A  certain  kind  of  money  becomes  current 
among  people  only  when  it  is  forcibly  demanded  of  alL 
Only  then  does  it  become  a  necessity  for  each  person  in 
order  that  he  may  ransom  himself  from  violence,  and 
only  then  does  it  receive  a  constant  exchange  value. 
What,  then,  receives  a  value  is  not  what  is  more  con- 
venient for  exchange,  but  what  is  demanded  by  the 
government.  If  gold  is  demanded,  gold  will  have  a  value  ; 
if  knuckle-bones  are  demanded,  knuckle-bones  will  have 
a  value.  If  this  were  not  so,  why  has  the  issue  of  this 
medium  of  exchange  always  formed  the  prerogative  of 
the  government  ? 

People  —  let  us  say  the  Fijians  —  have  established 
their  medium  of  exchange  ;  very  well,  let  them  exchange 


WHAT   SHALL    WE   DO    THEN?  123 

things  in  any  way  they  please,  and  you  people  who  have 
power,  that  is  the  means  for  violence,  do  not  meddle  with 
this  exchange.  But  what  you  do  is  to  coin  this  money, 
prohibiting  others  from  coining  the  like :  then,  as  is  the 
case  with  us,  you  print  a  lot  of  bills,  representing  on  them 
the  portraits  of  kings ;  you  sign  them  with  special  signa- 
tures ;  determine  penalties  for  the  counterfeiting  of  this 
money ;  distribute  them  among  your  assistants,  and  de- 
mand, in  the  form  of  state  and  land  taxes,  just  such  coins 
and  scraps  of  paper,  with  precisely  the  same  signatures, 
and  so  many  of  them  that  the  labourer  has  to  give  up  his 
whole  labour  in  order  to  obtain  these  scraps  of  paper  and 
these  coins,  and  you  assure  us  that  this  money  is  neces- 
sary as  a  medium  of  exchange. 

All  men  are  free,  and  one  set  of  men  does  not  oppress 
another,  does  not  keep  men  in  slavery ;  all  there  is,  is 
money  in  society  and  an  iron  law,  according  to  which 
rents  rise  and  wages  decrease  to  a  minimum !  The  fact 
that  half  (more  than  half)  the  Russian  peasants  sell  them- 
selves to  work  for  landed  proprietors  and  manufacturers, 
for  the  sake  of  their  direct  and  indirect  and  land  taxes, 
does  not  at  all  mean  what  it  obviously  means,  namely, 
that  the  levying  of  head  taxes  and  of  indirect  and  land 
taxes,  which  are  paid  to  the  government  and  to  its  assist- 
ants, the  proprietors,  in  money,  compels  the  labourer  to  be 
in  the  slavery  of  him  who  levies  the  money,  but  it  means 
that  there  is  money  —  the  medium  of  exchange  —  and 
an  iron  law ! 

When  the  serfs  were  not  free,  I  was  able  to  compel 
Vanka  to  do  all  kinds  of  work,  and  if  Vanka  refused, 
I  sent  him  to  the  rural  officer,  and  the  officer  flogged  him 
until  he  submitted.  However,  if  I  made  Vanka  work 
above  his  strength,  without  giving  him  land  or  food, 
the  matter  reached  the  ears  of  the  authorities,  and  I  had 
to  be  responsible  for  it.  Now  men  are  free,  but  I  can 
compel  V^nka,  Sidorka,  or  Petriishka  to  do  any  kind  of 


124       WHAT  SHALL  WE  DO  THEN  ? 

work,  and  if  he  refuses  I  will  not  give  him  any  money 
for  his  taxes,  and  they  will  flog  him  until  he  submits ; 
besides,  I  can  compel  a  German,  and  a  Frenchman,  and  a 
Chinaman,  and  a  Hindoo  to  work  for  me,  by  not  giving 
him  money,  in  case  of  his  insubmission,  with  which  to 
rent  land  or  buy  bread,  because  he  has  neither  land  nor 
bread.  And  if  I  make  him  work  without  food,  above  his 
strength,  if  I  kill  him  with  work,  no  one  will  say  a  word 
to  me ;  but  if,  in  addition,  I  have  read  books  on  political 
economy,  I  can  be  firmly  convinced  that  all  men  are  free, 
and  that  money  does  not  create  any  slavery. 

The  peasants  have  known  for  a  long  time  that  it  is 
possible  to  cause  more  pain  with  a  rouble  than  with  a 
club ;  it  is  only  political  economy  that  does  not  want 
to  know  it.  To  say  that  money  does  not  cause  any  en- 
slavement, is  the  same  as  if  half  a  century  ago  we  should 
have  said  that  the  serf  law  does  not  produce  any  enslave- 
ment. Political  economists  say  that,  although  in  conse- 
quence of  the  possession  of  money  one  man  may  enslave 
another,  money  is  a  harmless  medium  of  exchange.  Why, 
then,  could  it  not  have  been  said  half  a  century  ago  that, 
although  it  is  possible  by  means  of  the  serf  law  to  enslave 
a  man,  the  serf  law  is  not  a  means  for  enslavement,  but  a 
harmless  medium  of  mutual  services  ?  Some  give  their 
rude  work,  others  attend  to  the  physical  and  mental  wel- 
fare of  the  slaves  and  to  the  distribution  of  the  work.  It 
seems  to  me  they  used  to  talk  that  way. 


XIX. 

If  this  imaginary  science  —  political  economy  —  did 
not  busy  itself  with  what  all  the  juridical  sciences  busy 
themselves  with,  —  with  an  apology  for  violence,  it  could 
not  help  but  see  that  strange  phenomenon  that  the  distri- 
bution of  wealth  and  the  despoliation  of  land  and  capital 
by  some,  and  the  enslavement  of  one  set  of  men  by  an- 
other, are  all  dependent  on  money,  and  that  only  by  means 
of  money  one  set  of  men  now  exploits  the  labour  of 
others,  that  is,  enslaves  others. 

I  repeat :  a  man  who  has  money  can  buy  up  all  the 
bread  and  starve  another  and  for  the  bread  enslave  him 
completely.  Indeed,  so  it  is  done  on  a  large  scale  in  our 
own  sight.  One  would  think  that  it  would  be  necessary  to 
look  for  a  connection  between  these  phenomena  of  enslave- 
ment and  money,  but  science  assures  us  with  absolute 
confidence  that  money  has  no  relation  whatever  to  the 
enslavement  of  men. 

Science  says :  Money  is  a  commodity  Hke  any  other 
which  has  the  value  of  its  production,  with  this  difference, 
that  this  commodity  is  chosen  as  the  most  convenient 
medium  of  exchange  for  the  establishment  of  prices,  for 
storing,  and  for  making  payments :  one  man  makes  boots, 
another  grows  grain,  a  third  raises  sheep,  and,  to  be  able 
more  conveniently  to  exchange  their  products,  they  intro- 
duce money,  which  represents  a  corresponding  share  of 
labour,  and  by  means  of  it  exchange  soles  for  a  brisket 
of  mutton  and  ten  pounds  of  flour. 

The  men  of  this  imaginary  science  are  very  fond  of 
representing  to  themselves  such  a  state  of   affairs ;   but 

126 


126  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

such  a  state  of  affairs  has  never  existed  in  this  world. 
Such  a  representation  of  society  is  the  same  as  the  rep- 
resentation of  the  primeval,  uncorrupted,  perfect  human 
society,  which  former  philosophers  used  to  make  for 
themselves.  There  has  never  existed  such  a  state.  In 
all  human  societies,  where  there  has  been  any  money  as 
such,  there  has  always  existed  violence,  which  is  exerted 
by  the  strong  and  the  armed  over  the  weak  and  the 
unarmed ;  but  where  there  has  been  violence,  the  stand- 
ards of  values  —  money,  no  matter  what  it  may  have 
been,  —  cattle,  furs,  hides,  metals,  —  had  inevitably  to 
lose  their  significance  and  to  acquire  the  meaning  of 
ransom  from  violence. 

Money  has  unquestionably  the  harmless  properties 
which  science  mentions,  but  it  would  in  reahty  have 
these  properties  in  a  society  where  the  violence  of  one 
man  over  another  has  not  made  its  appearance,  —  in  an 
ideal  society;  but  in  such  a  society  there  would  be  no 
money  as  such,  as  a  common  standard  of  values,  as  it  has 
not  existed,  and  cannot  exist,  in  any  society  which  has  not 
been  subjected  to  the  general  political  violence.  Its  chief 
significance  is  not  to  serve  as  a  medium  of  exchange,  but 
to  serve  for  the  purpose  of  violence.  Where  there  is 
violence,  money  cannot  serve  as  a  regular  medium  of 
exchange,  because  it  cannot  be  a  standard  of  values.  It 
cannot  be  a  standard  of  values,  because,  as  soon  as  one 
man  in  society  can  take  away  from  another  the  products 
of  his  labour,  this  standard  is  at  once  impaired. 

If  horses  and  cows,  raised  by  farmers  and  others,  are 
taken  by  force  away  from  farmers  and  brought  together 
to  the  market,  it  is  evident  that  the  value  of  the  horses 
and  cows  at  this  market  will  no  longer  correspond  to  the 
labour  of  raising  the  stock,  and  the  values  of  all  other 
articles  will  change  in  conformity  with  this  change,  and 
money  will  not  determine  the  values  of  these  articles. 
Besides,  if  it  is  possible  by  force  to  acquire  a  cow,  a  horse, 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  127 

or  a  house,  it  is  possible  by  means  of  this  same  violence 
to  acquire  the  money  itself,  and  with  this  money  to  ac- 
quire all  the  other  products.  But  if  the  money  itself  is 
acquired  through  violence  and  is  used  for  the  purchase  of 
articles,  the  money  loses  every  semblance  of  a  medium 
of  exchange.  The  oppressor,  who  has  taken  away  the 
money  and  gives  it  for  the  products  of  labour,  does  not 
exchange,  but  by  means  of  the  money  takes  all  he  needs. 

But  even  if  there  existed  such  an  imaginary,  impossible 
society,  in  which,  without  the  general  political  violence 
being  exerted  over  men,  money  —  silver  or  gold  —  had 
the  significance  of  a  standard  of  values,  it  would,  at  the 
appearance  of  violence,  immediately  lose  its  significance 
even  in  such  a  society.  The  oppressor  makes  his  appear- 
ance in  such  a  society  in  the  form  of  a  conqueror.  This 
oppressor,  let  us  assume,  seizes  the  cows,  and  the  horses, 
and  the  houses  of  the  inhabitants ;  but  it  is  not  conve- 
nient for  him  to  possess  all  this,  and  so  it  naturally  occurs 
to  him  to  seize  that  from  these  people  which  among  them 
forms  all  kinds  of  values  and  is  exchanged  for  all  kinds 
of  articles,  namely,  money.  Immediately  the  money,  as 
a  standard  of  values,  ceases  to  have  any  place  in  such  a 
society,  because  the  standard  of  the  value  of  all  articles 
will  always  depend  on  the  arbitrary  will  of  the  oppressor. 
The  article  which  the  oppressor  will  need  most  and  for 
which  he  will  give  most  money,  will  receive  a  greater 
value,  and  vice  versa.  Thus  in  a  society  which  is  sub- 
jected to  violence,  the  money  at  once  receives  the  one 
predominant  meaning  of  a  medium  of  oppression  for  the 
oppressor,  and  will  retain  its  significance  as  a  medium  of 
exchange  for  the  oppressed  only  to  such  an  extent  and  in 
such  a  relation  as  is  convenient  for  the  oppressor. 

Let  us  imagine  the  matter  in  a  small  circle.  The  serfs 
furnish  the  proprietor  with  cloth,  chickens,  sheep,  and  day 
labour.  The  farmer  substitutes  money  for  the  dues  in 
kind,  and  determines  the  price  of  the  various  articles  of 


128  WHAT   SHALL    WE   DO   THEN? 

the  dues.  He  who  has  no  cloth,  bread,  cattle,  or  work 
hands,  can  offer  a  certain  sum  of  money.  It  is  evident 
that  in  the  society  of  the  peasants  belonging  to  this  pro- 
prietor, the  valuation  of  the  articles  wiU  always  depend 
on  the  arbitrary  will  of  the  proprietor.  The  proprietor 
makes  use  of  the  articles  collected,  and  some  he  needs 
more,  others  less,  and  in  accordance  with  this  he  deter- 
mines a  higher  or  lower  price  for  this  or  that  article.  It 
is  evident  that  nothing  but  the  proprietor's  will  or  his 
needs  decides  the  prices  of  these  articles  among  the 
payers. 

If  the  proprietor  needs  grain,  he  puts  a  high  price  on 
the  right  of  not  furnishing  a  given  amount  of  grain,  and  a 
low  price  on  the  right  of  not  furnishing  cloth,  cattle,  or 
day  labour ;  and  so  those  who  have  no  grain  will  sell  to 
others  their  labour,  their  cloth,  and  their  cattle,  in  order 
to  buy  the  grain  which  they  have  to  furnish  to  the 
proprietor. 

If  the  proprietor  takes  it  into  his  head  to  demand  all 
the  obligations  in  money  payments,  the  price  of  the  arti- 
cles will  again  not  depend  on  the  value  of  the  labour, 
but,  in  the  first  place,  on  the  amount  of'  money  which  the 
proprietor  will  demand,  and,  in  the  second,  on  the  articles 
produced  by  the  peasants,  which  the  proprietor  needs 
most,  and  so  on  this,  for  what  articles  he  pays  more  and 
and  for  what  less.  The  levy  of  money,  which  the  pro- 
prietor makes  on  the  peasants,  would  not  have  an  influ- 
ence on  the  value  of  articles  among  the  peasants,  unless, 
in  the  first  place,  the  peasants  of  this  proprietor  lived 
separately  from  other  people  and  had  no  other  relations 
except  those  between  themselves  and  the  proprietor,  and, 
in  the  second,  the  proprietor  did  not  use  the  money  for 
the  purchase  of  articles  from  his  own  village,  but  else- 
where. Only  under  these  two  conditions  would  the  value 
of  the  articles,  though  nominally  changed,  remain  rela- 
tively true,  and  the  money  would  have  the  significance 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  129 

of  a  standard  of  values  and  of  exchange ;  but  if  the  peas- 
ants have  economic  relations  with  the  surrounding  inhab- 
itants, the  greater  or  lesser  demand  for  money  made  by  the 
proprietor  will,  in  the  first  place,  affect  the  greater  or  lesser 
value  of  their  articles  in  relation  to  their  neighbours.  (If 
less  money  is  demanded  of  their  neighbours  than  of  them, 
their  products  will  be  sold  more  cheaply  than  the  products 
of  their  neighbours,  and  vice  versa.)  And,  in  the  second 
place,  the  levy  of  money  made  by  the  proprietor  on  the 
peasants  could  have  no  influence  on  the  value  of  the  prod- 
ucts unless  the  proprietor  did  not  use  the  money  collected 
for  the  purchase  of  products  from  his  peasants.  But  if  he 
uses  his  money  for  the  purchase  of  his  peasants'  products, 
it  is  evident  that  even  the  relation  of  prices  of  various 
articles  among  the  peasants  themselves  will  constantly 
change  in  proportion  as  the  proprietor  purchases  this  or 
that  article. 

Let  us  suppose  that  one  proprietor  has  set  the  peasant 
dues  very  high,  and  his  neighbour  has  put  them  low :  it 
is  evident  that  in  the  sphere  of  the  first  proprietor  all  the 
articles  will  be  cheaper  than  in  the  sphere  of  the  second, 
and  that  the  prices  in  either  sphere  will  depend  only  on 
the  raising  or  the  lowering  of  the  dues.  Such  is  one  of 
the  influences  of  violence  on  prices. 

Another  influence,  which  results  from  the  first,  will 
consist  in  the  relative  values  of  all  articles.  Let  us  sup- 
pose that  one  proprietor  likes  horses  and  pays  well  for 
them ;  another  is  fond  of  towels  and  pays  well  for  them. 
It  is  evident  that  in  the  possessions  of  the  two  proprietors 
horses  and  towels  will  be  high,  and  the  price  for  these 
articles  will  not  be  in  proportion  to  the  prices  of  cows 
and  of  grain.  To-morrow  the  one  who  is  fond  of  towels 
dies,  and  his  successor  is  fond  of  chickens :  it  is  evident 
that  the  price  of  the  towels  will  go  down,  and  that  of  the 
chickens  will  rise. 

Where  in  society  there  exists  the  oppression  of  one 


130  WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN? 

man  by  another,  the  significance  of  money  as  a  standard 
of  values  is  immediately  subjected  to  the  arbitrary  will  of 
the  oppressor,  and  its  significance  as  a  medium  of  ex- 
change of  products  of  labour  gives  way  to  its  significance 
as  a  most  convenient  medium  for  exploiting  the  labour  of 
others.  The  oppressor  needs  the  money  not  for  exchange, 
nor  for  the  establishment  of  standards  of  values,  —  he 
establishes  them  himself,  —  but  only  as  a  convenience  of 
oppression,  which  consists  in  this,  that  the  money  is  put 
away  for  safe-keeping,  and  that  with  money  it  is  much 
easier  to  keep  in  subjection  the  greatest  number  of  men.  It 
is  inconvenient  to  take  away  all  the  cattle,  in  order  that 
one  may  all  the  time  have  horses,  and  cows,  and  sheep, 
as  many  as  one  may  need  of  them,  because  one  has  to 
feed  them ;  the  same  is  true  of  the  grain,  —  it  may  get 
spoiled.  The  same  is  true  of  the  labour,  the  corvee :  at 
one  time  a  thousand  labourers  are  wanted,  and  at  another 
not  even  one.  The  money,  which  is  demanded  of  him 
who  does  not  have  it,  makes  it  possible  to  get  rid  of  all 
these  inconveniences  and  always  to  have  everything 
which  is  needed,  and  it  is  for  this  alone  that  the  oppressor 
needs  it.  Besides,  the  oppressor  needs  the  money  for 
this,  that  his  right  to  exploit  the  labour  of  others  may 
not  be  limited  to  certain  persons,  but  may  extend  over  all 
men  who  are  in  need  of  money.  When  there  was  no 
money,  the  proprietor  could  exploit  the  labour  of  his 
serfs  alone ;  but  when  two  of  them  agreed  to  take  from 
their  serfs  money,  which  they  did  not  have,  they  both 
began  indiscriminately  to  exploit  all  the  forces  in  the 
two  estates. 

And  so  the  oppressor  finds  it  more  convenient  to  make 
his  demands  for  other  people's  labour  in  the  shape  of 
money,  and  for  this  alone  does  the  oppressor  need  the 
money.  But  for  the  oppressed  man,  for  him  who  is 
deprived  of  his  labour,  the  money  is  not  necessary  for 
exchange,  —  he   exchanges   without   money,   as   all   the 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  131 

nations  without  governments  have  exchanged;  nor  for 
determining  the  standards  of  values,  because  this  determi- 
nation takes  place  in  spite  of  him ;  nor  for  safe-keeping, 
because  he  who  is  deprived  of  the  products  of  his  labour 
cannot  save ;  nor  for  payments,  because  the  one  who  is 
oppressed  will  have  to  pay  more  than  he  receives,  or, 
if  he  has  to  receive,  the  payments  will  not  be  made 
to  him  in  money,  but  in  commodities,  —  if  the  labourer 
receives  the  payment  for  his  work  directly  from  his 
master's  shop,  —  and  the  same  is  true  if  for  his  whole 
earnings  he  purchases  articles  of  prime  necessity  in  free 
shops.  Money  is  demanded  of  him,  and  he  is  told  that, 
if  he  does  not  pay  it,  he  will  get  no  land,  no  grain,  or  his 
cow,  his  house,  will  be  taken  from  him,  and  he  will  be 
made  to  work  out  or  will  be  put  in  prison.  From  this 
he  can  free  himself  only  by  selling  the  products  of  his 
labour  and  his  labour  itself  at  prices  which  are  not  estab- 
lished by  a  regular  exchange,  but  by  the  power  which 
demands  the  money  of  him. 

With  these  conditions  that  result  from  the  influence  of 
tributes  or  taxes  on  the  values,  which  are  repeated  at  all 
times  and  everywhere,  with  the  proprietor  on  a  small 
scale,  and  in  the  government  on  a  large  scale ;  with  these 
conditions,  where  the  causes  of  the  changes  of  values  are 
as  evident,  as  it  is  evident  to  him  who  looks  back  of  the 
curtain  why  and  how  the  marionette  raises  or  lets  down 
a  foot ;  with  these  conditions,  to  speak  of  money  as  repre- 
senting a  medium  of  exchange  and  a  standard  of  values 
is,  to  say  the  least,  astonishing. 


XX. 

Every  enslavement  of  one  man  by  another  is  based  on 
nothing  but  this,  that  one  man  may  deprive  another 
of  life  and,  without  abandoning  this  menacing  state,  may 
compel  another  to  do  his  will. 

It  may  unmistakably  be  said  that,  if  there  is  an 
enslavement  of  a  man,  that  is,  the  fulfilment  by  one  man 
against  his  will,  at  the  will  of  another,  of  certain  acts 
which  are  undesirable  to  him,  the  cause  of  it  is  only  the 
violence  which  has  for  its  foundation  the  menace  of 
depriving  him  of  life.  If  a  man  gives  all  his  labour 
to  others,  gets  insufficient  nourishment,  allows  his  little 
children  to  do  hard  work,  leaves  his  land,  and  devotes 
his  whole  life  to  hateful  and  to  him  useless  labour,  as 
actually  takes  place  in  our  sight,  in  our  society  (which 
we  call  cultured  only  because  we  live  in  it),  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  he  does  so  only  in  consequence  of  the  fact 
that  for  the  non-fulfilment  of  all  this  he  is  threatened 
with  the  loss  of  his  life.  And  so,  in  our  cultured  society, 
where  the  majority  of  people  under  terrible  privations 
perform  hateful  and  to  them  useless  labour,  the  majority 
of  men  are  in  a  state  of  enslavement,  which  is  based  on 
the  menace  of  depriving  them  of  their  lives.  Wherein 
does  this  enslavement  consist?  And  in  what  does  the 
menace  of  depriving  them  of  their  lives  lie  ? 

In  ancient  times  the  manner  of  enslavement  and  the 
threat  of  depriving  men  of  their  Hves  were  manifest: 
they  employed  a  primitive  method  for  enslaving  people, 
which  consisted  in  the  direct  threat  of  killing  by  means 

132 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  133 

of  the  sword.  The  man  in  arms  said  to  him  who 'was 
unarmed :  "  I  can  kill  you,  as  you  saw  me  kill  your 
brother ;  but  I  do  not  want  to  do  so,  —  I  spare  you,  most 
of  all,  because  it  is  more  advantageous  for  me  and  for  you 
if  you  work  for  me,  than  if  you  are  killed.  And  so,  do 
everything  which  I  command  you,  for  if  you  refuse  I  will 
kill  you."  And  the  unarmed  man  submitted  to  him  who 
was  armed,  and  did  everything  commanded  by  him.  The 
unarmed  man  worked,  the  one  in  arms  threatened.  That 
was  that  personal  slavery  which  is  the  first  to  appear 
among  all  the  nations,  and  even  now  may  be  met  with 
among  primitive  nations. 

This  method  of  enslavement  is  the  first  to  make  its 
appearance,  but  with  the  greater  complexity  of  life  this 
method  is  modified.  In  proportion  as  life  becomes  more 
complicated,  this  method  presents  great  inconveniences  to 
the  oppressor.  To  exploit  the  labour  of  the  feeble,  the 
oppressor  is  obH'ged  to  feed  and  clothe  them,  that  is,  to 
maintain  them  in  such  a  way  that  they  may  be  able  to 
do  work,  and  thus  the  number  of  the  enslaved  is  lim- 
ited ;  besides,  this  method  compels  the  oppressor  all  the 
time  to  stand  over  the  enslaved  with  the  threat  of  kill- 
ing them.  And  so  a  second  method  of  enslavement 
is  worked  out. 

Five  thousand  years  ago,  as  is  noted  down  in  the 
Bible,  this  new,  more  convenient,  and  broader  method 
was  worked  out  by  Joseph  the  Fair.  This  method  is 
the  same  which  in  modem  times  is  used  for  the  taming 
of  unruly  horses  and  wild  beasts  in  menageries.  This 
method  is  starvation. 

This  is  the  way  it  is  described  in  the  Bible,  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis,  Chapter  XLI. : 

48.  And  he  gathered  up  all  the  food  of  the  seven  years 
which  were  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  laid  up  the  food  in 
the  cities :  the  food  of  the  field  which  was  round  about 
every  city,  laid  he  up  in  the  same. 


134  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

49.  And  Joseph  gathered  corn  as  the  sand  of  the  sea, 
very  much,  until  he  left  numbering ;  for  it  was  without 
number. 

53.  And  the  seven  years  of  plenteousness  that  was  in 
the  land  of  Egypt,  were  ended. 

54.  And  the  seven  years  of  dearth  began  to  come, 
according  as  Joseph  had  said:  and  the  dearth  was  in 
all  lands ;  but  in  all  the  land  of  Egypt  there  was 
bread. 

55.  And  when  all  the  land  of  Egypt  was  famished, 
the  people  cried  to  Pharaoh  for  bread  :  and  Pharaoh  said 
unto  all  the  Egyptians,  Go  unto  Joseph ;  what  he  saith 
to  you,  do. 

56.  And  the  famine  was  over  all  the  face  of  the  earth : 
and  Joseph  opened  all  the  store-houses,  and  sold  unto 
the  Egyptians  ,  and  the  famine  waxed  sore  in  the  land 
of  Egypt. 

57.  And  aU  countries  came  into  Egypt  to  Joseph  for 
to  buy  corn ;  because  that  the  famine  was  so  sore  in  all 
lands. 

Making  use  of  the  right  of  the  primitive  method  of 
enslaving  people  with  the  threat  of  the  sword,  Joseph 
collected  the  corn  in  the  good  years,  in  expectation  of 
the  bad  years,  which  generally  follow  after  the  good,  a 
fact  which  all  people  know  without  Pharaoh's  dreams, 
and  by  this  means  —  by  hunger  —  he  enslaved  the 
Egyptians  and  all  the  other  inhabitants  of  the  surround- 
ing countries  more  powerfully  and  more  conveniently  for 
Pharaoh.  But  when  the  people  began  to  suffer  from 
hunger,  he  so  arranged  it  that  the  people  would  for  ever 
be  in  his  power,  —  through  hunger.  This  is  described  in 
Chapter  XLVII. : 

13.  And  there  was  no  bread  in  all  the  land  ;  for  the 
famine  was  very  sore,  so  that  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  all 
the  land  of  Canaan,  fainted  by  reason  of  tlie  famine. 

14.  And  Joseph  gathered  up  all  the  money  that  was 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  135 

found  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  in  the  land  of  Canaan, 
for  the  corn  which  they  bought :  and  Joseph  brought  the 
money  into  Pharaoh's  house. 

15.  And,  when  money  failed  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and 
in  the  land  of  Canaan,  all  the  Egyptians  came  unto 
Joseph,  and  said.  Give  us  bread :  for  why  should  we  die 
in  thy  presence  ?  for  the  money  faileth. 

16.  And  Joseph  said,  Give  your  cattle ;  and  I  will  give 
you  for  your  cattle,  if  money  fail. 

17.  And  they  brought  their  cattle  unto  Joseph :  and 
Joseph  gave  them  bread  in  exchange  for  horses,  and  for 
the  flocks,  and  for  the  cattle  of  the  herds,  and  for  the 
asses ;  and  he  fed  them  with  bread,  for  all  their  cattle, 
for  that  year. 

18.  When  that  year  was  ended,  they  came  unto  him  the 
second  year,  and  said  unto  him.  We  will  not  hide  it  from 
my  lord,  how  that  our  money  is  spent ;  my  lord  also  hath 
our  herds  of  cattle :  there  is  not  aught  left  in  the  sight  of 
my  lord,  but  our  bodies  and  our  lands : 

19.  Wherefore  shall  we  die  before  thine  eyes,  both  we 
and  our  land  ?  buy  us  and  our  land  for  bread,  and  we  and 
our  land  will  ^be  servants  unto  Pharaoh :  and  give  us 
seed,  that  we  may  live,  and  not  die  that  the  land  be  not 
desolate. 

20.  And  Joseph  bought  all  the  land  of  Egypt  for 
Pharaoh;  for  the  Egyptians  sold  every  man  his  field, 
because  the  famine  prevailed  over  them  :  so  the  land 
became  Pharaoh's. 

21.  And  as  for  the  people,  he  removed  them  to  cities 
from  one  end  of  the  borders  of  Egypt  even  to  the  other 
end  thereof. 

22.  Only  the  land  of  the  priests  bought  he  not ;  for  the 
priests  had  a  portion  assigned  them  of  Pharaoh,  and  did 
eat  their  portion  which  Pharaoh  gave  them;  wherefore 
they  sold  not  their  lands. 

23.  Then  Joseph  said  unto  the  people.  Behold,  I  have 


136  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

bought  you  this  day  and  your  land  for  Pharaoh :  lo,  here 
is  seed  for  you,  and  ye  shall  sow  the  land. 

24.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  the  increase,  that  ye 
shall  give  the  fifth  part  unto  Pharaoh,  and  four  parts  shall 
be  your  own,  for  seed  of  the  field,  and  for  your  food,  and 
for  them  of  your  households,  and  for  food  for  your  little 
ones. 

25.  And  they  said,  Thou  hast  saved  our  lives :  let  us 
find  grace  in  the  sight  of  my  lord,  and  we  will  be  Pha- 
raoh's servants. 

26.  And  Joseph  made  it  a  law  over  the  land  of  Egypt 
unto  this  day,  that  Pharaoh  should  have  the  fifth  part; 
except  the  land  of  the  priests  only,  which  became  not 
Pharaoh's. 

Before  this,  Pharaoh,  to  exploit  the  labours  of  the 
people,  had  to  compel  them  by  force  to  work  for  him; 
but  now,  since  the  provisions  and  the  land  are  all  in  the 
hands  of  Pharaoh,  he  needs  only  to  watch  them  by  force, 
and  may  compel  them  by  hunger  to  work  for  him. 

The  whole  land  is  Pharaoh's,  and  the  provisions  (what 
can  be  taken  away)  are  always  in  his  hands,  and  so, 
instead  of  driving  each  one  individually  with  the  sword 
to  work,  he  needs  only  guard  the  provisions  by  force,  and 
the  people  are  enslaved,  not  by  the  sword,  but  by  hunger. 

In  a  year  of  famine,  all  may  by  Pharaoh's  will  be 
starved  to  death,  and  in  a  year  of  plenty  those  may  be 
starved  who,  from  some  accidental  mishaps,  have  no 
supply  of  corn. 

And  there  establishes  itself  a  second  method  of  enslave- 
ment, not  directly  by  the  sword,  that  is,  by  this,  that  the 
one  who  is  strong,  threatening  with  death,  drives  the  one 
who  is  weak  to  work,  but  by  this,  that  the  strong  man, 
taking  the  provisions  away  and  guarding  them  with  the 
sword,  compels  the  weak  man  to  surrender  himself  to 
work  for  his  food. 

Joseph  says  to  the  hungry  :  "  I  can  starve  you  to  death, 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  137 

because  I  have  the  corn ;  but  I  spare  you,  if,  for  the  bread 
which  I  give  you,  you  will  do  what  I  command." 

Eor  the  first  method  of  enslavement  the  one  in  power 
needs  only  have  warriors,  who  make  their  rounds  among 
the  inhabitants  and  under  the  threat  of  death  carry  out  the 
demand  of  the  powerful  man.  With  the  first  method 
the  oppressor  need  divide  only  with  his  warriors.  But 
with  the  second  method,  the  oppressor  needs,  in  addition 
to  the  warriors  necessary  to  guard  the  stores  of  corn  and 
the  land  against  the  starving,  another  class  of  assistants, 
—  big  and  little  Josephs,  —  managers  and  distributers 
of  corn.  And  the  oppressor  has  to  divide  up  with  them 
and  to  give  Joseph  a  vesture  of  fine  linen,  a  gold  ring, 
and  servants,  and  corn,  and  silver  for  his  brothers  and 
relatives.  Besides,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  the 
accomplices  in  the  violence  of  this  second  method  are  not 
only  the  managers  and  their  relatives,  but  also  all  those 
who  have  supplies  of  corn.  As  in  the  first  method,  which 
is  based  on  rude  force,  every  one  who  had  arms  became 
a  participant  in  the  violence,  so  in  this  method,  which 
is  based  on  hunger,  every  one  who  has  supplies  takes 
part  in  the  oppression  and  rules  over  those  who  have 
none. 

The  advantage  of  this  method  over  the  first  consists  for 
the  oppressor  in  this:  (1)  above  all  else,  that  he  is  no 
longer  obliged  to  exert  an  effort  in  compelling  the  labour- 
ers to  do  his  will,  but  that  the  labourers  come  themselves 
and  sell  themselves  to  him ;  (2)  that  a  smaller  number  of 
men  slip  away  from  his  oppression.  The  disadvantage 
for  the  oppressor  is  only  this,  that  in  this  method  he  has 
to  divide  up  with  a  larger  number  of  men.  The  advan- 
tage in  this  method  for  the  oppressed  is  this,  that  they 
are  no  longer  subjected  to  rude  violence,  but  are  left  to 
themselves  and  may  always  hope  to  pass  over  from  the 
oppressed  to  the  oppressor,  which  in  reality  they  some- 
times are  able  to  do  under  favourable  conditions;  but 


138  WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO    THEN? 

their  disadvantage  is  this,  that  they  can  never  slip  away 
from  a  certain  amount  of  violence. 

This  new  method  of  enslavement  generally  enters  into 
use  with  the  old,  and  the  powerful  man  reduces  the  one 
and  expands  the  other,  as  the  need  for  it  may  arise.  But 
even  this  method  of  enslavement  does  not  fully  satisfy 
the  wishes  of  the  powerful  man,  —  to  take  away  the  great- 
est possible  amount  of  products  of  labour  from  the  greatest 
possible  number  of  labourers,  and  to  enslave  the  great- 
est possible  number  of  men,  —  and  does  not  correspond  to 
the  more  complex  conditions  of  life,  and  a  new  method  of 
enslavement  is  worked  out. 

The  new,  and  third,  method  is  the  method  of  tribute. 
This  method,  like  the  second,  is  based  on  hunger,  but  to 
the  means  of  enslaving  men  by  depriving  them  of  bread 
is  added  also  that  of  depriving  them  of  the  other  necessi- 
ties. The  powerful  man  exacts  from  his  slaves  such  an 
amount  of  monetary  tokens,  which  he  himself  possesses, 
that,  in  order  to  obtain  them,  the  slaves  are  obliged  not 
only  to  sell  supplies  of  corn  on  a  larger  scale  than  that 
fifth  which  Joseph  determined,  but  also  articles  of  prime 
necessity,  —  meat,  hides,  wool,  garments,  fuel,  buildings 
even,  and  so  the  oppressor  always  keeps  his  slaves  in  sub- 
jection, not  only  through  hunger,  but  also  through  thirst, 
and  want,  and  cold,  and  all  other  kinds  of  privations. 

And  there  establishes  itself  a  third  form  of  slavery, 
that  of  money,  which  consists  in  this,  that  the  powerful 
man  says  to  the  weak  :  "  I  can  do  with  each  of  you  sepa- 
rately what  I  please ;  I  can  simply  kill  you  with  a  gun, 
or  I  can  kill  you  by  taking  away  your  land  which  feeds 
you,  or  I  can,  for  the  monetary  tokens,  which  you  must 
furnish  me,  buy  up  all  the  corn  on  which  you  feed,  and 
sell  it  to  strangers,  and  any  moment  starve  you  out;  I 
can  take  away  everything  which  you  have,  —  your  cattle, 
your  dwellings,  your  garments,  —  but  that  is  not  conve- 
nient and  agreeable  for  me,  and  so  I  leave  it  to  you  to 


WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  139 

dispose  of  your  labour  and  the  products  of  your  labour 
as  you  please ;  only  give  me  so  many  monetary  tokens, 
which  demand  I  distribute  either  by  heads,  or  according 
to  the  land  on  which  you  are  settled,  or  according  to 
your  food  and  drink,  or  your  garments,  or  buildings.  Let 
me  have  these  tokens,  and  arrange  matters  among  your- 
selves as  you  please;  but  know  this  much,  that  I  will 
not  defend  and  protect  the  widows,  nor  the  orphans,  nor 
the  sick,  nor  the  old,  nor  those  who  have  suffered  from 
fires ;  I  will  defend  only  the  regularity  of  the  circulation 
of  these  monetary  tokens.  Only  he  who  gives  me  reg- 
ularly, in  accordance  with  my  demand,  the  established 
amount  of  monetary  tokens,  will  be  right  in  my  eyes  and 
will  receive  my  protection.  It  is  a  matter  of  indifference 
to  me  how  these  monetary  tokens  are  obtained." 

And  the  powerful  man  issues  these  tokens,  as  receipts 
for  the  fulfilment  of  his  demands. 

The  second  method  of  enslavement  consists  in  this, 
that,  taking  away  the  fifth  part  of  the  crops  and  laying 
by  stores  of  corn,  Pharaoh,  in  addition  to  the  personal 
enslavement  by  means  of  the  sword,  receives,  with  his 
assistants,  the  possibility  of  ruling  all  the  workingmen  in 
time  of  famine  and  some  of  them  in  time  of  calamities 
which  befall  them.  The  third  method  consists  in  this, 
that  Pharaoh  demands  of  the  labourers  more  than  the 
part  of  corn  costs  which  he  took  from  them,  and  re- 
ceives, with  his  assistants,  a  new  means  for  ruling  the 
labourers,  not  only  in  time  of  famine  and  accidental  mis- 
haps, but  also  at  all  times. 

With  the  second  method  the  people  keep  supplies  of 
com,  which  help  them,  without  surrendering  themselves 
to  slavery,  to  bear  small  failures  of  crops  and  accidental 
mishaps;  with  the  third  method,  when  the  exactions  are 
greater,  the  supplies  of  corn  are  all  taken  away,  and  so 
are  all  the  other  supplies  of  articles  of  prime  necessity, 
and  with  the  slightest  mishap  the  labourer,  who  has  no 


140  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO   THEN? 

supplies  of  com,  nor  any  other  supplies,  which  he  might 
be  able  to  exchange  for  com,  is  subjected  to  slavery  by 
those  who  have  money.  With  the  first  method  the  op- 
pressor needs  only  have  warriors  and  divide  with  them ; 
with  the  second  method  he  has  to  have,  in  addition  to 
the  guardians  of  the  land  and  of  the  supplies  of  com,  col- 
lectors and  clerks  for  the  distribution  of  the  corn ;  with 
the  third  method  he  can  no  longer  himself  mle  the  land, 
but  in  addition  to  the  warriors  to  guard  the  land  and  the 
wealth,  he  must  also  have  owners  of  land  and  collectors 
of  tribute,  distributers  according  to  heads  or  to  articles  of 
use,  superintendents,  customs  servants,  managers  of  money, 
and  operators  with  money. 

The  organization  of  the  third  method  is  much  more 
complicated  than  the  second;  with  the  second  method, 
the  collecting  of  the  corn  may  be  farmed  out,  as  was  done 
in  ancient  times  and  is  even  now  done  in  Turkey  ;  but  in 
burdening  the  slaves  with  taxes,  a  complicated  adminis- 
tration of  men  is  needed,  to  watch  after  this,  that  the 
men,  or  their  acts  which  are  taxable,  shall  not  escape  the 
tribute.  And  so,  with  the  third  method,  the  oppressor 
has  to  share  with  a  still  greater  number  of  men  than  with 
the  second  method ;  besides,  in  the  very  nature  of  things, 
all  the  men,  either  of  the  same  or  of  a  foreign  country, 
who  have  money,  become  the  participants  in  this  third 
method.  The  advantages  of  this  method  for  the  op- 
pressor over  the  first  and  the  second  methods  are  the 
following : 

In  the  first  place,  that  by  means  of  this  method  a 
greater  amount  of  work  may  be  got  out  in  a  more  con- 
venient manner,  for  a  money  tax  is  like  a  screw,  —  it 
may  be  easily  and  conveniently  screwed  in  to  its  highest 
limit,  care  being  taken  that  the  golden  hen  is  not  killed, 
so  that  it  is  not  even  necessary  to  wait  for  a  year  of  fam- 
ine, as  in  the  case  of  Joseph,  because  the  year  of  famine 
is  made  perpetual 


WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  141 

In  the  second  place,  that  with  this  method  the  violence 
is  now  extended  over  all  the  people  without  land,  who 
formerly  escaped  and  gave  only  part  of  their  labour  away, 
but  now  are  obliged,  in  addition  to  the  part  of  their  labour 
which  they  used  to  give  for  the  corn,  to  give  also  part  of 
this  labour  as  taxes  to  the  oppressor. 

The  disadvantage  for  the  oppressor  consists  in  this, 
that  with  this  method  he  has  to  share  with  a  greater 
number  of  men,  not  only  of  his  immediate  assistants,  but 
also,  in  the  first  place,  with  all  those  private  landowners 
who  generally  make  their  appearance  with  this  third 
method ;  in  the  second  place,  with  all  those  men  of  his 
own,  and  even  of  a  foreign,  nation,  who  have  the  monetary 
tokens  which  are  demanded  of  the  slaves. 

The  advantage  for  the  oppressed  man,  in  comparison 
with  the  second  method,  is  this :  he  receives  a  still  greater 
personal  independence  from  the  oppressor;  he  can  live 
where  he  pleases,  do  what  he  pleases,  and  sow  grain,  or 
not ;  he  is  not  obliged  to  give  an  account  of  his  work  and, 
having  money,  may  consider  himself  quite  free,  and  con- 
stantly hope  to  obtain,  and  actually  obtain,  for  a  time  at 
least,  if  he  has  surplus  money  or  land  bought  for  it,  not 
only  an  independent  condition,  but  also  that  of  an  op- 
pressor. 

The  disadvantage  to  him  is  this,  that  in  its  totality  the 
condition  of  the  oppressed,  under  this  third  method,  be- 
comes much  harder,  and  they  are  deprived  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  products  of  their  labour,  since  with  this  third 
method  the  number  of  men  who  exploit  the  labour  of 
others  is  still  greater,  and  so  the  burden  of  supporting 
them  falls  on  a  smaller  number. 

This  third  method  of  enslavement  is  also  very  old,  and 
enters  into  use  with  the  other  two,  without  completely 
excluding  them.  All  three  methods  of  enslavement  have 
never  ceased  to  exist.  All  three  methods  may  be  com- 
pared with  screws  which  hold  down  the  plank  that  is 


142  WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO   THEN? 

laid  over  the  labourers  and  is  choking  them.  The  chief, 
fundamental,  middle  screw,  without  which  the  other 
screws  will  ^not  hold,  which  is  the  first  to  be  screwed  in 
and  is  never  relaxed,  is  the  screw  of  personal  slavery,  of 
the  enslavement  of  one  set  of  men  by  another  by  means 
of  the  threat  of  execution  by  the  sword ;  the  second  screw, 
which  is  screwed  in  after  the  first,  is  the  enslavement  of 
people  by  means  of  depriving  them  of  the  land  and  of  the 
provisions  of  food,  a  seizure  which  is  supported  by  the  per- 
sonal threat  of  execution ;  and  the  third  screw  is  the  en- 
slavement of  people  by  means  of  a  demand  for  monetary 
tokens,  which  they  do  not  have,  again  supported  by  the 
threat  of  murder.  All  three  screws  are  screwed  in,  and 
only  when  one  is  tightened  do  the  others  weaken.  For 
the  complete  enslavement  of  the  labourer  all  three  screws 
—  all  three  kinds  of  enslavement  —  are  needed,  and  in 
our  society  all  three  methods  of  enslavement  are  con- 
stantly in  use,  —  all  three  screws  are  always  screwed  in. 

The  first  method  of  the  enslavement  of  men  by  means 
of  personal  violence  and  the  threat  of  execution  by  the 
sword  has  never  been  abolished,  and  will  not  be  abolished 
so  long  as  there  exists  any  kind  of  an  enslavement  of  one 
set  of  men  by  another,  because  upon  it  every  enslavement 
is  based.  We  are  all  very  naively  convinced  that  personal 
slavery  has  been  abolished  in  our  civilized  world,  that 
its  last  remnants  have  been  destroyed  in  America  and 
in  Kussia,  and  that  now  barbarians  alone  have  slavery, 
while  we  do  not  have  it.  We  all  forget  about  a  small 
circumstance,  about  those  hundreds  of  millions  of  a  stand- 
ing army,  without  which  there  does  not  exist  a  single 
government,  and  with  the  abolition  of  which  the  whole 
economic  structure  of  any  government  will  inevitably  go 
to  pieces.  What  are  these  millions  of  soldiers,  if  not  the 
personal  slaves  of  those  who  rule  over  them  ?  Are  not 
these  men  compelled  to  do  the  whole  will  of  their  owners 
under  threat  of  torments  and  of  death,  —  a  threat  which 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  143 

is  frequently  carried  out?  The  only  difference  is  this, 
that  the  subjection  of  these  slaves  is  not  called  slavery, 
but  discipline,  and  that  the  others  were  slaves  from  their 
birth  to  their  death,  while  these  are  so  only  for  the  longer 
or  shorter  time  of  their  so-called  service. 

Personal  slavery  has  not  only  not  been  abohshed  in  our 
civilized  societies,  but  with  the  universal  military  service 
it  has  of  late  been  strengthened,  and  it  remains  at  present 
such  as  it  has  always  been,  only  a  little  changed.  It 
cannot  help  but  be,  for,  so  long  as  there  is  any  enslave- 
ment of  one  set  of  men  by  another,  there  will  be  this 
personal  slavery,  which  with  the  threat  of  the  sword 
supports  the  territorial  and  tax  enslavement  of  men.  It 
may  be  that  this  slavery,  that  is  the  army,  is  very  neces- 
sary, as  they  say,  for  the  defence  and  the  glory  of  the 
country,  but  this  usefulness  is  more  than  doubtful,  for  we 
see  that  in  unsuccessful  wars  it  frequently  serves  for 
the  enslavement  and  degradation  of  the  country ;  but  what 
is  quite  indubitable  is  the  usefulness  of  this  slavery  for 
the  purpose  of  maintaining  the  territorial  and  tax  enslave- 
ment. Let  the  Irish  or  the  Russian  peasants  get  posses- 
sion of  the  proprietors'  lands,  the  armies  will  come  and 
take  them  back  again.  Let  one  build  a  distillery  or 
brewery  and  refuse  to  pay  the  revenue,  and  the  soldiers 
will  come  and  stop  the  plant.  Refuse  to  pay  taxes,  and 
the  same  will  happen. 

The  second  screw  is  the  method  of  enslaving  people 
by  depriving  them  of  their  land,  and  so,  of  their  food 
supphes.  This  method  of  enslavement  has  also  existed 
and  will  always  exist,  wherever  men  are  enslaved,  and, 
no  matter  how  much  it  jmay  be  modified,  it  exists  every- 
where. At  times  the  whole  land  belongs  to  the  king,  as 
is  the  case  in  Turkey,  and  one-tenth  of  the  crop  is  collected 
for  the  treasury;  at  others  only  part  of  the  land,  and  a 
tax  is  collected  from  it ;  again,  the  whole  land  belongs  to 
a  small  number  of  men,  and  a  share  of  the  labour  is 


144  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

exacted,  as  is  the  case  in  England ;  or  a  greater  or  smaller 
part  belongs  to  large  proprietors,  as  in  Kussia,  Germany, 
and  France.  But,  wherever  there  is  any  enslavement, 
there  is  also  the  appropriation  of  the  land  by  means  of 
enslavement. 

The  screw  of  this  enslavement  of  people  is  loosened  or 
tightened  in  proportion  as  the  other  screws  are  screwed 
down ;  thus,  in  Kussia,  when  the  personal  enslavement 
was  distributed  over  the  majority  of  the  labourers,  the 
territorial  enslavement  was  superfluous  ;  but  the  screw  of 
the  personal  enslavement  in  Russia  was  loosened  only 
when  the  screws  of  the  territorial  and  tax  enslavement 
were  tightened.  All  were  attached  to  communes,  all 
migration  and  transposition  were  discouraged,  the  land 
was  appropriated  or  given  away  to  private  persons,  and 
then  the  peasants  were  set  free.  In  England,  for  example, 
the  territorial  enslavement  is  most  active,  and  the  question 
of  the  nationalization  of  the  land  consists  merely  in  tighten- 
ing the  tax  screw,  in  order  to  loosen  the  screw  of  the 
territorial  enslavement. 

The  third  method  of  enslavement  —  by  means  of 
tribute,  of  taxes  —  has  similarly  existed,  and,  in  our 
time^  with  the  dissemination  of  uniform  monetary  tokens 
in  the  different  countries  and  the  strengthening  of  the 
governmental  power,  has  only  acquired  a  special  force. 
This  method  has  been  so  worked  out  in  our  time  that  it 
is  striving  to  substitute  itself  for  the  second,  the  terri- 
torial method  of  enslavement.  It  is  the  screw  which, 
when  tightened  down,  weakens  the  territorial  screw,  as  is 
evident  from  the  economic  cc>ndition  of  the  whole  of 
Europe.  We  have  within  our  memory  gone  in  Russia 
through  two  passages  of  slavery  from  one  form  into 
another :  when  the  serfs  were  emancipated  and  the  pro- 
prietors were  left  with  the  right  to  the  greater  part  of 
the  land,  the  proprietors  were  afraid  that  their  power  over 
their  peasants  was  escaping  from  them ;  but  experience 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   BO   THEN?  145 

showed  that  they  needed  only  to  let  out  of  their  hands 
the  old  scourge  of  the  personal  slavery  and  take  up 
another,  the  territorial  scourge.  The  peasant  had  no  corn 
to  feed  on,  and  the  proprietor  had  the  land  and  the 
supply  of  corn,  and  so  the  peasant  was  left  the  same 
slave  he  had  been. 

The  second  passage  was  when  the  government  with  its 
taxes  screwed  down  very  tightly  the  other  screw,  that  of 
the  taxes,  and  the  majority  of  the  labourers  were  com- 
pelled to  sell  themselves  into  slavery  to  the  landed  pro- 
prietors and  into  the  factories.  And  thus  a  new  form  of 
slavery  took  possession  of  the  people  even  more  thor- 
oughly, so  that  nine-tenths  of  the  working  classes  work 
for  the  proprietors  and  in  the  factories,  only  because  they 
are  compelled  to  do  so  by  the  demand  for  state  and  land 
taxes.  This  is  so  obvious  that,  let  the  government  just 
try  not  collecting  any  direct,  indirect,  and  land  taxes  for 
the  period  of  one  year,  and  all  the  works  in  other  people's 
fields  and  in  the  factories  will  come  to  a  standstill.  Nine- 
tenths  of  the  Eussian  people  hire  out  during  the  time 
that  the  taxes  are  levied,  and  for  the  purpose  of  paying 
the  taxes. 

All  three  methods  of  the  enslavement  of  people  have 
never  ceased  to  exist,  and  exist  now;  but  people  are 
prone  not  to  notice  them,  the  moment  new  justifications 
are  found  for  these  methods.  And  what  is  strange  is 
that  this  very  method,  on  which  at  the  present  time 
everything  is  based,  —  this  screw  which  holds  everything 
together,  —  is  not  noticed. 

When  in  the  ancient  world  the  whole  economic  struc- 
ture was  based  on  persoual  slavery,  the  greatest  minds 
could  not  see  that  it  was  it.  It  seemed  to  Xenophon,  and 
to  Plato,  and  to  Aristotle,  and  to  the  Eomans  that  it 
could  not  be  otherwise,  and  that  slavery  was  the  inevi- 
table outcome  of  wars,  without  which  humanity  was 
unthinkable.     Even  so  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  down  to 


146  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

our  own  time  men  did  not  see  the  significance  of  terri- 
torial possession  and  the  consequent  slavery,  on  which 
the  whole  economic  structure  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 
hased.  Even  so  no  one  sees  now,  nor  wants  to  see,  that 
in  our  time  the  enslavement  of  the  majority  of  people  is 
based  on  the  monetary  state  and  land  taxes,  which  are 
collected  by  the  governments  from  their  subjects,  —  taxes 
which  are  collected  by  means  of  the  administration  and 
the  army,  which  are  maintained  by  the  taxes. 


XXL 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  slaves  themselves,  who 
since  antiquity  have  been  subjected  to  slavery,  are  not 
conscious  of  their  condition  and  consider  that  condition 
of  slavery  in  which  they  have  always  lived  as  a  natural 
condition  of  human  life,  and  see  an  alleviation  in  the 
change  of  the  form  of  slavery.  Nor  is  it  surprising  that 
the  slave-owners  sometimes  sincerely  mean  to  free  the 
slaves,  —  to  loosen  one  screw,  when  the  other  is  already 
tightened.  Both  are  accustomed  to  their  condition,  and 
the  first,  the  slaves,  who  do  not  know  what  liberty  is, 
seek  only  alleviation  or  at  least  a  change  of  the  form 
of  slavery ;  the  others,  the  slave-owners,  who  wish  to  con- 
ceal their  injustice,  try  to  ascribe  a  special  significance  to 
those  new  forms  of  slavery  which  they  impose  on  the 
people  in  the  place  of  the  old. 

But  what  is  remarkable  is  how  science,  the  so-called 
free  science,  can,  in  investigating  the  economic  conditions 
of  the  people's  life,  help  seeing  what  forms  the  basis  of 
all  the  economic  conditions  of  the  people  ?  One  would 
think  that  it  is  the  business  of  science  to  discover  the 
connection  between  phenomena,  and  the  common  cause 
of  a  series  of  phenomena.  Political  economy  does  pre- 
cisely the  opposite :  it  carefully  conceals  the  connection  of 
the  phenomena  and  their  significance,  and  carefully  avoids 
all  answers  to  the  simplest  and  most  essential  questions ; 
it  is  like  a  lazy,  restive  horse,  which  goes  well  only  down- 
hill, when  there  is  nothing  to  pull ;  but  the  moment  it  is 
necessary  to  pull,  it  prances  toward  one  side,  pretending 
that  it  has  to  go  somewhere  to  one  side,  to  attend  to  its 

147 


148  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

own  business.  The  moment  a  serious,  essential  question 
presents  itself  to  science,  there  at  once  begin  scientific 
discussions  about  subjects  which  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  question  and  which  have  but  one  purpose,  —  to  draw 
the  attention  away  from  the  question. 

You  ask  what  the  cause  is  of  that  unnatural,  monstrous, 
irrational,  and  not  only  useless,  but  even  harmful,  phe- 
nomenon that  certain  men  can  neither  eat  nor  work 
except  by  the  will  of  other  men.  And  science  answers 
with  a  most  serious  look :  Because  certain  people  attend 
to  the  work  and  nourishment  of  others,  —  such  being  the 
law  of  production. 

You  ask  what  the  right  of  property  is,  on  the  basis  of 
which  one  set  of  men  appropriate  to  themselves  the  land, 
the  food,  and  the  tools  of  labour  of  others.  Science 
answers  with  a  most  serious  look :  This  right  is  based  on 
the  defence  of  one's  labour,  that  is,  that  the  defence  of 
labour  by  one  set  of  men  is  expressed  by  the  seizure 
of  the  labour  of  other  men. 

You  ask  what  that  money  is  which  is  coined  and 
printed  everywhere  by  the  government,  that  is,  by  the 
power,  and  which  is  in  such  enormous  quantities  exacted 
from  the  labourers,  and  which  in  the  form  of  state  debts 
is  imposed  on  future  generations  of  labourers.  You  ask 
whether  this  money,  carried  to  the  farthest  limits  of  pos- 
sible exaction,  in  these  proportions  has  not  an  effect  on 
the  economic  relations  of  the  people  who  are  paying  to 
the  receivers.  And  science  with  a  most  serious  look  tells 
you :  Money  is  a  commodity,  like  sugar  and  chintz,  which 
differs  from  these  only  in  that  it  is  more  convenient  for 
exchange ;  but  the  taxes  have  no  effect  at  all  upon  the 
economic  conditions  of  the  people :  the  laws  of  produc- 
tion, of  exchange,  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  are  one 
thing,  and  the  taxes  are  another. 

You  ask  whether  the  economic  conditions  are  not 
influenced  by  this,  that  the  government  of  its  own  will 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  149 

may  raise  or  lower  prices,  and  may,  by  raising  the  taxes, 
enslave  all  those  who  have  land.  Science  with  a  most 
serious  look  answers  :  Not  at  all !  The  laws  of  production, 
exchange,  distribution,  are  one  science,  and  taxes  and  the 
management  of  the  state  in  general  are  another  science,  — 
the  law  of  finance. 

You  ask,  finally,  about  the  whole  nation's  being  en- 
slaved by  the  government,  about  the  government  being 
able  of  its  own  will  to  ruin  all  men,  to  take  away  from 
them  all  the  products  of  their  labour,  and  even  to  tear  the 
men  away  from  labour,  by  putting  them  into  mihtary 
slavery  ;  you  ask  whether  this  circumstance  has  any  effect 
upon  the  economic  conditions.  To  this,  science  does  not 
even  trouble  itself  to  reply  :  this  is  an  entirely  different 
science,  —  that  of  civil  government. 

Science  most  seriously  analyzes  the  laws  of  the  eco- 
nomic life  of  the  nation,  whose  every  function  and  activ- 
ity depends  on  the  will  of  the  enslaver,  and  recognizes 
this  influence  of  the  enslaver  as  a  natural  condition  of  the 
nation's  Hfe ;  science  does  the  same  that  the  investigator 
of  the  economic  condition  of  the  life  of  personal  serfs 
belonging  to  various  masters  would  do,  if  he  did  not  take 
into  consideration  the  influence  upon  the  lives  of  the  slaves 
which  is  exerted  by  the  will  of  the  master,  who  by  his 
arbitrary  will  compels  them  to  do  this  or  that  work, 
according  to  his  will  drives  them  from  one  spot  to  another, 
and  according  to  his  will  feeds  them,  or  does  not  feed 
them,  kills  them,  or  lets  them  live. 

One  is  inclined  to  think  that  science  does  so  out  of 
stupidity ;  but  it  is  enough  to  grasp  and  analyze  the  prop- 
ositions of  science  in  order  to  become  convinced  that  it  is 
not  due  to  stupidity,  but  to  great  ingenuity. 

This  science  has  a  very  definite  aim,  which  it  attains. 
This  aim  is  to  keep  people  in  superstition  and  deception, 
and  thus  to  prevent  humanity  from  moving  toward  the 
truth  and  the  good.     There  has  long  existed  a  terrible 


150  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

superstition  which  has  done  almost  more  harm  to  people 
than  the  most  terrible  superstitions.  And  it  is  this  super- 
stition which  the  so-called  science  sustains  with  all  its 
might  and  main. 

This  superstition  is  very  much  like  religious  supersti- 
tions :  it  consists  in  the  assertion  that,  in  addition  to  the 
obhgations  which  man  has  to  man,  there  exist  still  more 
important  obligations  to  an  imaginary  being.  For  theology 
this  imaginary  being  is  God,  and  for  political  sciences  it  is 
the  state.  The  rehgious  superstition  consists  in  this, 
that  the  sacrifices,  sometimes  of  human  lives,  which  are 
brought  to  the  imaginary  being,  are  necessary,  and  men 
can  and  must  be  brought  to  them  by  all  means,  not  even 
excluding  violence.  The  political  superstition  consists  in 
this,  that,  in  addition  to  the  obligations  of  man  to  man, 
there  exist  more  important  obligations  to  the  imaginary 
being,  and  the  sacrifices,  very  frequently  of  human  lives, 
which  are  brought  to  the  imaginary  being,  the  state,  are 
also  necessary,  and  men  can  and  must  be  brought  to  them 
by  all  means,  not  excluding  violence.  This  superstition, 
which  formerly  was  sustained  by  priests  of  various  relig- 
ions, is  now  sustained  by  the  so-called  science.  Men  'are 
thrust  into  a  more  terrible  and  a  worse  slavery  than  any 
other;  but  science  tries  to  assure  people  that  this  is 
necessary  and  cannot  be  otherwise. 

The  state  must  exist  for  the  good  of  the  people  and 
must  do  its  business,  —  rule  the  people  and  defend  them 
from  the  enemy.  For  this  the  state  needs  money  and  an 
army.  The  money  is  to  be  suppHed  by  all  the  citizens  of 
the  state,  and  so  all  the  relations  of  men  must  be  viewed 
under  the  necessary  conditions  of  political  existence. 

"  I  want  to  help  my  father  in  his  farm  work,"  says  a 
simple,  untutored  man,  "  I  want  to  marry,  and  they  take 
me  and  send  me  for  six  years  to  Kaz^n  to  be  a  sol- 
dier. I  leave  the  army,  want  to  plough  the  land  and 
support  my  family,  but  for  a  hundred  versts  about  me  I 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  151 

am  not  permitted  to  plough,  unless  I  pay  money,  which 
I  do  not  have,  to  those  people  who  do  not  know  how  to 
plough  and  demand  so  much  money  for  it  that  I  am  com- 
pelled to  give  them  all  my  labour.  I  manage  to  earn 
something  and  want  to  give  my  surplus  to  my  children ; 
but  the  rural  officer  comes  to  me  and  takes  away  my 
surplus  in  the  shape  of  taxes ;  again  I  earn  some,  and  every- 
thing is  taken  from  me.  My  whole  economic  activity, 
all  of  it,  without  any  residue,  is  dependent  on  the  demands 
of  the  state,  and  it  appears  to  me  that  the  improvement 
of  my  condition  and  of  that  of  my  brothers  must  come 
from  our  liberation  from  the  demands  of  the  state." 

But  science  says :  Your  judgments  are  due  to  your 
ignorance.  Learn  the  laws  of  production,  exchange,  and 
distribution  of  wealth,  and  do  not  mix  up  economic  ques- 
tions with  questions  of  state.  The  phenomena  to  which 
you  point  are  not  restrictions  of  your  freedom,  but  those 
necessary  sacrifices,  which,  together  with  others,  you 
bring  for  your  freedom  and  your  good. 

"  But  they  have  taken  my  son  from  me  and  promise  to 
take  all  my  other  sons  as  soon  as  I  see  them  grow  up," 
again  says  the  simple  man.  "  They  take  them  forcibly 
from  me  and  drive  them  under  bullets  into  another  coun- 
try, of  which  we  have  never  heard,  and  for  purposes  which 
we  cannot  understand.  But  the  land,  which  we  are  not 
permitted  to  plough  and  the  lack  of  which  causes  us  to 
starve,  is  owned  by  a  man  whom  we  have  never  seen  and 
whose  usefulness  we  are  not  able  even  to  comprehend. 
But  the  taxes,  to  satisfy  which  the  officer  took  the  cow 
away  from  my  children,  by  force,  for  all  I  know  will  go 
back  to  this  officer  who  took  the  cow  away  from  me,  and 
to  various  members  of  commissions  and  ministries,  whom 
I  do  not  even  know,  and  in  whose  usefulness  I  do  not 
believe.  How,  then,  can  all  these  violences  secure  my 
liberty,  and  how  can  all  this  evil  do  me  any  good  ? " 

It  is  possible  to  make  a  man  be  a  slave,  and  do  what 


152  WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

he  considers  to  be  evil,  but  it  is  impossible  to  make  him 
think  that,  while  suffering  violence,  he  is  free,  and  that 
the  obvious  evil  which  he  is  suffering  is  for  his  good. 
That  seems  impossible;  but  that  is  precisely  what  has 
been  done  in  our  day  with  the  help  of  science. 

The  government,  that  is,  armed  people  doing  violence, 
decides  what  it  needs  from  those  to  whom  it  offers 
violence ;  like  the  English  in  respect  to  the  Fijians,  it 
decides  how  many  assistants  it  needs  for  the  collecting  of 
this  labour,  organizes  its  assistants  in  the  form  of  soldiers, 
in  the  form  of  landed  proprietors,  and  in  the  form  of  col- 
lectors of  taxes.  And  the  slaves  give  up  their  labour 
and  at  the  same  time  believe  that  they  give  it  up,  not 
because  their  masters  want  it,  but  because  for  their  free- 
dom and  their  good  they  must  serve  and  bring  bloody 
sacrifices  to  the  divinity  called  "  the  state,"  but  that,  out- 
side of  this  divinity,  they  are  free.  They  believe  this, 
because  formerly  religion  and  the  priests  talked  that  way, 
and  because  science  and  the  learned  say  so.  But  we  need 
only  stop  believing  blindly  in  what  other  people,  calling 
themselves  priests  and  learned  men,  say,  in  order  that 
the  insipidity  of  such  an  assertion  may  become  evident. 
People  who  do  violence  to  others  say  that  this  violence  is 
necessary  for  the  government,  and  that  the  government 
is  necessary  for  the  freedom  and  for  the  good  of  the 
people:  it  turns  out  that  oppressors  oppress  the  people 
for  the  sake  of  their  freedom,  and  do  them  evil  for  their 
good.  But  people  are  rational  beings  that  they  may  un- 
derstand in  what  their  good  hes,  and  that  they  may  be 
free  to  do  it. 

But  the  deeds,  the  goodness  of  which  is  incomprehen- 
sible to  people,  and  to  which  they  are  urged  on  by  force, 
cannot  be  good  for  them,  for  a  rational  being  can  regard 
as  good  only  that  which  presents  itself  as  such  to  his 
mind.  If  people  from  passion  or  ignorance  are  drawn 
toward  the  evil,  all  that  people  can  do,  who  do  not  act 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  153 

thus,  is  to  persuade  men  to  do  what  constitutes  their  real 
good.  It  is  possible  to  persuade  people  that  their  good 
will  be  greater  if  they  all  become  soldiers,  be  deprived  of 
land,  give  up  all  their  labour  for  taxes ;  but,  so  long  as 
people  will  not  consider  this  as  their  good,  and  will  not 
do  it  voluntarily,  this  matter  cannot  be  called  the  general 
good  of  men.  The  only  sign  of  the  goodness  of  a  deed  is 
that  all  people  do  it  of  their  own  free  will,  and  of  such 
deeds  the  lives  of  men  are  full. 

Ten  labourers  provide  themselves  with  cooper's  tools  in 
order  to  work  together,  and,  in  doing  this  work,  they  un- 
questionably do  a  common  good  to  themselves ;  but  it  is 
absolutely  impossible  to  imagine  that  the  labourers,  com- 
pelling an  eleventh  man  by  force  to  take  part  in  their 
association,  could  assert  that  their  common  good  will  also 
be  a  good  for  the  eleventh  man. 

The  same  is  true  of  gentlemen  who  give  a  dinner  to  a 
friend  of  theirs :  it  is  just  as  little  possible  to  assert  that 
the  dinner  will  be  a  good  thing  for  him  from  whom  they 
will  take  ten  roubles  by  force.  The  same  is  true  of 
peasants  who  decide  to  dig  a  pond  for  their  convenience. 
For  those  who  will  regard  the  existence  of  this  pond  as  a 
greater  good  than  the  labour  expended  upon  it,  the  dig- 
ging of  it  will  be  a  common  good ;  but  for  him  who  con- 
siders the  existence  of  this  pond  a  lesser  good  than  the 
harvesting  of  the  field,  to  which  he  has  come  too  late, 
the  digging  of  this  pond  can  be  no  good.  The  same  is 
true  of  roads  which  people  lay  out,  and  of  churches,  and 
museums,  and  of  the  greatest  variety  of  social  and  political 
matters.  All  these  matters  can  be  a  good  only  for  those 
who  regard  them  as  such  and  so  do  them  freely  and  will- 
ingly as  in  the  case  of  the  purchase  of  the  tools  for  the 
association,  the  dinner  given  by  the  gentlemen,  the  pond 
which  the  peasants  dig.  But  all  works  to  which  people 
have  to  be  driven  by  force  are,  in  consequence  of  this 
violence,  no  longer  common,  nor  good. 


154  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

All  this  is  so  clear  and  so  simple  that,  if  people  had  not  ' 
been  deceived  for  so  long  a  time,  it  would  not  be  neces- 
sary to  explain  anything.  Let  us  suppose  that  we  are 
living  in  the  country  and  that  we,  all  the  villagers,  have 
decided  to  build  a  bridge  across  a  swamp  into  which  we 
sink.  We  have  agreed  or  promised  to  give  from  each 
farm  so  much  money,  or  timber,  or  so  many  days.  We 
have  agreed  to  do  so,  only  because  the  building  of  this 
bridge  is  of  greater  importance  to  us  than  the  expense 
which  we  incur  upon  it.  But  among  us  there  are  some 
people  for  whom  it  is  more  convenient  not  to  have  a 
bridge  than  to  spend  money  upon  it,  or  who  at  least 
think  that  this  is  more  advantageous  for  them.  Can  the 
compulsion  of  these  men  to  build  the  bridge  make  it  an 
advantage  for  them  ?  Evidently  not,  because  these  men, 
who  regarded  their  free  participation  in  the  building  of 
the  bridge  as  unprofitable,  will  regard  it  as  even  more 
unprofitable,  when  it  becomes  compulsory. 

Let  us  even  suppose  that  we,  aU  of  us  without  excep- 
tion, have  agreed  to  build  this  bridge  and  have  promised 
so  much  money  or  labour  from  each  farm ;  but  it  so 
happens  that  a  few  of  those  who  promised  a  share  have 
not  furnished  it,  because  their  circumstances  have  changed, 
causing  them  to  find  it  more  advantageous  to  be  without 
the  bridge  than  spend  money  on  it ;  or  they  have  simply 
changed  their  mind ;  or  they  simply  calculate  that  the 
others  will  build  the  bridge  without  their  contributions, 
so  that  they  also  will  be  able  to  drive  over  it :  can  com- 
pelling these  people  to  take  part  in  the  building  of  the 
bridge  make  these  compulsory  sacrifices  a  benefit  to  them  ? 
Evidently  not,  because,  if  these  men  have  not  carried  out 
what  they  promised,  on  account  of  circumstances  which 
have  changed,  so  that  the  contributions  for  the  bridge 
have  become  harder  for  them  than  the  absence  of  the 
bridge,  their  compulsory  contributions  will  only  be  a 
greater  evil  to  them.     But  if  those  who  refuse  have  a 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN"?      .  155 

mind  to  make  use  of  the  labours  of  others,  their  compul- 
sion to  contribute  will  only  be  a  punishment  for  their 
intention,  and  their  intention,  completely  unexpressed, 
will  be  punished  before  it  is  carried  into  effect ;  in  neither 
case  can  their  compulsion  to  take  part  in  an  undesirable 
work  be  a  good  for  them. 

Thus  it  will  be  when  the  contributions  are  received  for 
a  work  that  is  comprehensible,  obvious,  and  unquestion- 
ably useful  for  them,  like  the  bridge  over  the  swamp, 
through  which  all  travel.  How  much  more  unjust  and 
senseless  will  be  the  compulsion  exerted  on  millions  of 
people  to  make  sacrifices,  the  aim  of  which  is  incom- 
prehensible, intangible,  and  frequently  unquestionably 
harmful,  as  is  the  case  with  mihtary  service  and  with 
the  taxes.  But  according  to  science  it  turns  out  that 
what  to  all  appears  as  an  evil  is  a  common  good ;  it  turns 
out  that  there  are  people,  a  tiny  minority  of  men,  who 
alone  know  wherein  the  common  good  lies,  and,  although 
all  other  men  consider  this  common  good  to  be  evil,  this 
minority,  compelling  all  other  men  to  do  this  evil,  is  able 
to  consider  this  evil  to  be  a  common  good. 

In  this  consists  the  chief  superstition  and  the  chief 
deception,  which  retards  the  motion  of  humanity  toward 
truth  and  the  good.  The  maintenance  of  this  superstition 
and  this  deception  forms  the  aim  of  the  political  sciences 
in  general  and  of  the  so-called  political  economy  in  par- 
ticular. Its  aim  is  to  conceal  from  people  that  condition 
of  subjection  and  of  slavery  in  which  they  are.  The  means 
which  it  employs  for  this  purpose  consist  in  this,  that,  in 
analyzing  the  violence  which  conditions  the  whole  economic 
life  of  the  enslaved,  it  intentionally  recognizes  this  violence 
as  natural  and  inevitable,  and  thus  deceives  people  and 
veils  their  eyes  from  the  real  cause  of  their  wretchedness. 

Slavery  has  long  been  abolished.  It  was  abolished  in 
Eome,  and  in  America,  and  in  our  country,  but  what  has 
been  abolished  is  words,  and  not  facts. 


156  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

•  Slavery  is  the  liberation  of  self  from  labour  (necessary 
for  the  gratification  of  one's  needs),  which  by  means  of 
violence  is  transferred  to  others;  and  where  there  is  a 
man  who  does  not  work,  not  because  other  people  work 
for  him  for  love's  sake,  but  because  he  is  able  not  to 
work  himself,  but  to  compel  others  to  work  for  him,  there 
is  slavery.  But  where  there  are  people,  as  in  all  European 
societies,  who  by  means  of  violence  exploit  the  labours  of 
thousands  of  men,  and  who  regard  this  as  their  privilege, 
and  other  people,  who  submit  to  the  violence  and  recog- 
nize it  as  their  obligation,  there  slavery  exists  in  terrible 
proportions. 

Slavery  exists.  In  what  does  it  consist  ?  In  that  in 
which  it  has  always  consisted,  and  without  which  it  can 
never  exist:  in  the  violence  of  the  strong  and  armed 
exerted  over  the  weak  and  the  unarmed. 

Slavery  with  its  three  fundamental  methods  of  personal 
violence,  —  of  militarism,  taxation  of  land,  supported  by 
the  militarism,  and  the  tribute  which  is  imposed  on  all 
the  inhabitants  by  means  of  direct  and  indirect  taxes,  and 
which  is  supported  by  the  same  militarism,  —  exists  to- 
day as  it  has  always  existed.  The  only  reason  why  we 
do  not  see  it  is  this,  that  each  of  the  three  forms  of 
slavery  has  received  a  new  justification,  which  shields 
from  us  its  meaning.  The  personal  violence  of  the  armed 
done  to  the  unarmed  has  received  the  justification  of  a 
defence  of  the  country  against  its  imaginary  enemies ;  in 
reality  it  has  the  old  meaning,  namely,  that  of  the  subjec- 
tion of  the  vanquished  by  the  oppressor.  The  violence 
exerted  in  taking  the  land  from  those  who  work  upon 
it  has  received  the  justification  of  a  reward  for  deserts 
respecting  the  imaginary  common  good  and  is  confirmed 
by  the  right  of  inheritance ;  in  reality  it  is  the  same 
despoliation  of  the  land  and  enslavement  of  the  people 
which  was  produced  by  the  army  (the  power).  The  last, 
the  monetary  violence,  the  violence  of   taxation,  —  the 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN"?  157 

most  powerful  and  most  important  in  modern  times, — 
has  received  the  most  remarkable  justification,  namely, 
this :  people  are  deprived  of  their  property  and  freedom, 
and  of  their  whole  good  in  the  name  of  freedom,  of  the 
common  good.  In  reality  it  is  nothing  but  the  same 
slavery,  except  that  it  is  impersonal. 

Where  violence  is  exalted  into  a  law,  there  slavery  also 
will  exist.  Whether  the  violence  is  expressed  in  this 
way,  that  the  princes  make  incursions  with  their  retinues, 
killing  women  and  children,  and  giving  the  villages  to 
fire;  or  whether  the  slave-owners  exact  work  or  money 
from  the  slaves  for  the  land,  and,  in  case  'of  arrears,  call 
in  the  aid  of  armed  men ;  or  whether  certain  people  put 
others  under  tribute,  travelling  armed  from  village  to 
village ;  or  whether  the  ministry  of  the  interior  collects 
money  through  governors  and  rural  officers,  and,  in  case 
of  refusal  to  pay,  sends  out  companies  of  soldiers,  —  in 
short,  so  long  as  there  is  violence,  supported  by  bayonets, 
there  will  be  no  distribution  of  wealth  among  people,  but 
the  whole  wealth  will  go  to  the  oppressors. 

George's  project  of  the  nationalization  of  the  land 
serves  as  a  striking  illustration  of  the  truth  of  this  propo- 
sition. George  proposes  that  all  the  land  be  regarded  as 
the  property  of  the  state,  and  so  all  imposts,  whether 
direct  or  indirect,  are  to  be  replaced  by  a  ground  rent, 
that  is,  that  every  man  who  makes  use  of  the  land  shall 
pay  to  the  state  the  value  of  its  rent. 

What  would  happen?  Land  slavery  would  be  des- 
troyed within  the  limits  of  the  state,  that  is,  the  land 
would  belong  to  the  state :  England  would  have  its  land, 
America  its  own,  and  so  forth,  —  that  is,  there  would  be 
a  slavery  which  would  be  determined  by  the  amount 
of  land  under  exploitation. 

Maybe  the  condition  of  some  of  the  labourers  (on  the 
land)  would  improve;  but  so  long  as  there  was  left  a 
violent  levy  of  taxes  for  the  rent,  slavery  would  be  left. 


158  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

The  agriculturist,  who  after  a  failure  of  crops  would  be 
unable  to  pay  the  rent,  which  is  exacted  of  him  by  force, 
would  be  compelled,  in  order  not  to  lose  everything,  to 
sell  himself  to  the  man  who  had  the  money. 

If  a  bucket  is  leaky,  there  is  certainly  a  hole  in  it.  As 
we  look  at  the  bottom  of  the  bucket,  it  may  appear  to  us 
that  the  water  is  leaking  out  of  several  holes ;  but,  no 
matter  how  much  we  may  stop  up  these  imaginary  holes, 
the  water  will  continue  to  flow.  In  order  to  stop  the 
flow,  it  is  necessary  to  find  the  place  where  the  water 
escapes  from  the  bucket  and  stop  it  from  the  inside.  The 
same  has  to  te  done  with  the  proposed  measures  for 
stopping  the  irregular  distribution  of  wealth,  in  order  to 
stop  the  hole  through  which  the  wealth  of  the  people 
leaks  out.  They  say:  "Form  labour  unions;  turn  the 
capital  into  public  property ;  turn  the  land  into  pubhc 
property  ! "  All  this  is  nothing  but  an  external  stoppage 
of  the  places  through  which  the  water  seems  to  leak.  In 
order  to  stop  the  leakage  of  the  working  men's  wealth, 
which  passes  into  the  hands  of  the  leisure  class,  it  is 
necessary  to  find  the  inside  hole  through  which  this 
leakage  takes  place. 

This  hole  is  the  violence  exerted  by  an  armed  man 
over  one  who  is  not  armed;  it  is  the  violence  of  the 
army,  which  takes  the  men  away  from  their  labour,  or 
which  despoils  them  of  the  land  and  of  the  products  pf 
their  labour.  So  long  as  there  shall  exist  a  single  armed 
man  who  arrogates  to  himself  the  right  to  kill  another, 
there  will  exist  the  irregular  distribution  of  wealth,  that 
is,  slavery. 

What  led  me  into  the  error  that  T  could  help  others  was 
that  I  imagined  that  my  money  was  the  same  kind  of 
money  as  Semen's.     But  that  was  not  true. 

There  exists  a  common  opinion  that  money  represents 
wealth  ;  but  money  is  the  product  of  labour,  and  so  money 


WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  159 

represents  labour.  This  opinion  is  as  correct  as  that  other 
opinion  that  every  political  organization  is  the  result  of  a 
pact  (contrat  social). 

All  want  to  believe  that  money  is  only  a  medium  of 
the  exchange  of  labour.  I  have  made  some  boots,  you 
have  raised  some  grain,  he  has  fattened  some  sheep;  in 
order  to  be  able  more  conveniently  to  exchange  our  arti- 
cles, we  introduce  money,  which  represents  a  correspond- 
ing share  of  labour,  and  by  means  of  it  we  exchange  some 
soles  for  a  brisket  of  mutton  and  ten  pounds  of  flour.  We 
exchange  our  products  through  the  mediun^  of  the  money, 
and  the  money  of  each  of  us  represents  our  individual 
labour.  That  is  quite  true,  but  only  so  long  as  in  society, 
where  this  exchange  takes  place,  there  has  not  appeared 
the  violence  of  one  man  over  another,  not  only  violence 
to  another  man's  labour,  as  is  the  case  in  war  and  slavery, 
but  also  violence  in  the  defence  of  one's  labour  against 
others.  It  will  be  true  only  in  a  society  whose  members 
fully  execute  the  Christian  law,  in  a  society  where  he 
who  asks  receives  what  he  asks  for,  and  where  they  do 
not  ask  the  aggressor  to  give  back  what  he  has  taken. 
But  as  soon  as  any  violence  is  exerted  in  society,  the 
money  at  once  loses  for  the  owner  its  significance  as  a 
representative  of  labour,  and  assumes  the  meaning  of 
a  right  which  is  not  based  on  labour,  but  on  violence. 

The  moment  there  is  war,  and  one  man  takes  anything 
away  from  another,  the  money  can  no  longer  be  a  repre- 
sentative of  labour ;  the  money  which  the  warrior  gets  for 
the  booty  which  he  sells,  and  which  the  chief  of  the 
warrior  gets,  is  by  no  means  a  product  of  their  labour, 
and  has  an  entirely  different  meaning  than  the  money 
received  for  work  put  into  making  boots.  So  long  as 
there  are  slave-owners  and  slaves,  as  has  always  been  the 
case  in  the  whole  world,  it  is  just  as  impossible  to  say 
that  money  represents  labour.  The  women  have  woven 
some  linen,  and  this  they  sell,  and  they  receive  money 


\ 


160  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

for  it ;  the  serfs  have  woven  for  the  master,  and  the 
master  sells  the  linen,  and  receives  money  for  it.  Either 
money  is  the  same ;  but  the  first  is  the  product  of  labour, 
the  second  is  the  product  of  violence.  In  the  same  way 
a  stranger  or  my  father  has  made  me  a  present  of  money, 
and  my  father,  giving  it  to  me,  knew,  and  I,  too,  know, 
and  everybody  else  knows,  that  nobody  can  take  this 
money  away  from  me ;  that  if  any  one  should  try  to  take 
it  from  me,  or  even  not  to  return  it  to  me  by  a  set  time, 
at  which  he  promised  to  return  it  to  me,  the  authorities 
would  take  my  part  and  compel  him  by  force  to  return 
the  money  to  me.  And  so  it  is  again  obvious  that  this 
money  can  in  no  way  be  called  a  representative  of  labour 
on  a  par  with  the  money  which  Sem^n  received  for  saw- 
ing wood.  Thus  in  a  society  in  which  there  is  the  least 
violence  which  takes  possession  of  other  people's  money, 
or  which  defends  the  possession  of  money  from  others, 
the  money  cannot  always  be  a  representative  of  labour. 
In  such  a  society  it  is  sometimes  a  representative  of 
labour,  and  sometimes  of  violence. 

Thus  it  would  be  if  there  appeared  even  one  case  of 
violence  exerted  by  one  man  over  others  among  absolutely 
free  relations  ;  but  now,  when  for  the  accumulation  of 
money  there  have  passed  centuries  of  the  most  varied  forms 
of  violence ;  when  this  violence  merely  changes  forms  and 
does  not  cease  ;  when,  as  is  acknowledged  by  everybody, 
the  money  itself  in  its  accumulation  forms  violence ;  w^hen 
money,  as  the  product  of  direct  labour,  forms  but  a  small 
part  of  the  money  formed  from  every  description  of 
violence,  —  now  to  say  that  money  represents  the  labour 
of  him  who  possesses  it  is  an  obvious  delusion  or  a  con- 
scious lie.  We  may  say  that  it  ought  to  be  so,  or  that  it 
is  desirable  that  it  should  be  so,  but  by  no  means  that 
it  is  so. 

Money  represents  labour.  Yes.  Money  represents 
labour ;  but  whose  ?     In  our  society  money  is  only  in  the 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  161 

very  rarest  cases  a  representative  of  the  labour  of  the 
owner  of  the  money,  and  is  nearly  always  a  representative 
of  the  labour  of  other  people,  past  or  future.  It  is  a  rep- 
resentative of  other  people's  obligations  to  do  work,  as 
established  through  violence. 

In  its  most  precise  and,  at  the  same  time,  most  simple 
definition,  money  is  a  conventional  token  which  gives  the 
right,  or,  more  correctly,  the  possibility,  to  exploit  the 
labour  of  other  people.  In  its  ideal  significance,  money 
ought  to  give  this  right  or  possibility  only  when  it  itself 
serves  as  a  representative  of  labour,  and  money  cduld  be 
that  in  a  society  where  there  is  no  violence.  But  the 
moment  there  is  any  violence  in  society,  that  is,  the  pos- 
sibility of  exploiting  another  man's  labour  without  one's 
own  work,  this  possibility  of  exploiting  another  man's 
labour,  without  the  determination  of  the  person  over 
whom  this  violence  is  exerted,  is  also  expressed  by 
money. 

A  proprietor  imposes  upon  his  serfs  certain  obligations 
in  kind,  a  certain  number  of  bolts  of  linen,  corn,  cattle, 
or  a  corresponding  sum  of  money.  One  farm  furnishes 
cattle,  but  pays  money  in  lieu  of  the  linen.  The  propri- 
etor takes  a  certain  sum  of  money  only  because  he  knows 
that  for  this  money  they  will  make  just  as  many  bolts  of 
linen  for  him  (as  a  rule  he  will  take  a  little  more  so  as  to 
be  sure  that  they  will  always  produce  the  exact  amount) 
and  to  the  proprietor  this  money  obviously  represents  the 
obligation  of  other  people  to  do  work. 

The  peasant  gives  the  money  as  a  claim  against  some 
unknown  person,  and  there  are  many  persons  who  will 
be  willing  for  the  money  to  produce  so  and  so  many  bolts 
of  linen.  The  reason  that  the  people  will  undertake  to 
produce  the  linen  is  this,  that  they  have  not  had  time 
to  fatten  their  sheep,  and  they  have  to  pay  money  for  the 
sheep,  and  the  peasant  who  will  take  the  money  for 
the  sheep  will  take  it  because  he  has  to  pay  for  the  corn 


162  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

which  did  not  grow  well  this  year.  The  same  thing 
takes  place  in  the  state,  in  the  whole  world. 

A  man  sells  the  product  of  his  present,  past,  or  future 
labour,  sometimes  his  food,  as  a  rule  not  because  the 
money  is  for  him  a  convenience  of  exchange,  —  he  would 
gladly  exchange  without  money,  —  but  because  they 
exact  the  money  from  him  by  force,  as  a  claim  to  his 
own  labour. 

When  the  King  of  Egypt  demanded  labour  from  his 
slaves,  the  slaves  gave  it  all,  but  they  gave  only  their 
past  and  their  present  labour,  —  they  could  not  give  their 
future  labour.  But  with  the  dissemination  of  monetary 
tokens  and  the  consequent  credit,  it  became  possible  to 
give  up  money  for  future  labours.  With  the  existence 
of  violence  in  society,  money  represents  only  the  possi- 
bility of  a  new  form  of  an  impersonal  slavery,  which 
takes  the  place  of  the  personal  slavery.  A  slave-owner 
has  the  right  to  Peter's,  Ivan's,  Siddr's  labour.  But  the 
owner  of  money,  where  money  is  demanded  of  all,  has 
the  right  to  the  labour  of  all  those  nameless  men  who 
are  in  need  of  money.  Money  does  away  with  all  that 
hard  side  of  slavery,  when  the  owner  knows  his  right 
to  Ivdn ;  at  the  same  time  it  does  away  with  all  the 
human  relations  between  the  owner  and  the  slave,  which 
softened  the  hardness  of  personal  slavery. 

I  do  not  say  that  such  a  condition  is,  perhaps,  neces- 
sary for  the  evolution  of  humanity,  for  progress,  and  so 
forth.  I  have  only  tried  to  make  clear  to  myself  the 
concept  of  money  and  of  that  common  error  into  which  I 
had  fallen  when  I  regarded  money  as  the  representative 
of  labour.  I  convinced  myself  by  experience  that  money 
is  not  the  representative  of  labour,  but  in  the  majority  of 
cases  a  representative  of  violence,  or  of  especially  com- 
plex devices  based  on  violence. 

Money  has  in  our  time  completely  lost  that  desirable 
significance  as  a  representative  of  labour ;  such  a  signifi- 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  163 

cance  it  has  only  exceptionally,  for  as  a  general  rule  it 
has  become  a  right  or  a  possibility  for  exploiting  the 
labour  of  others. 

The  dissemination  of  money,  of  credit,  and  of  all  kinds 
of  monetary  tokens  more  and  more  confirms  this  mean- 
ing of  money.  Money  is  the  possibility  or  the  right  to 
exploit  the  labours  of  others.  Money  is  a  new  form  of  ^ 
slavery,  which  differs  from  the  old  only  in  being  imper- 
sonal, and  in  freeing  people  from  all  the  human  relations 
of  the  slave. 

Money  is  money,  a  value  which  is  always  equal  to 
itself,  which  is  always  considered  absolutely  regular  and 
legal,  and  the  use  of  which  is  not  considered  immoral,  as 
the  use  of  the  right  of  slavery  was  considered  to  be. 

In  my  youth  it  became  fashionable  in  clubs  to  play 
lotto.  Everybody  rushed  to  play  it,  and,  as  they  said, 
many  persons  were  ruined,  families  were  made  unfortu- 
nate, other  people's  Crown  money  was  gambled  away, 
and  men  shot  themselves,  and  the  game  was  prohibited 
and  is  prohibited  until  this  day. 

I  used  to  see,  I  remember,  unsentimental  old  gamblers, 
who  would  tell  me  that  this  game  was  particularly  agree- 
able in  that  a  person  did  not  see  whom  in  particular  he 
was  beating,  as  is  the  case  in  other  games ;  the  lackey 
did  not  even  bring  money,  but  only  chips,  and  each 
person  lost  but  a  small  stake,  and  his  grief  could  not  be 
observed.  The  same  is  true  of  roulette,  which  is  every- 
where prohibited  for  good  reasons. 

The  same  is  true  of  money.  I  have  a  magic  never- 
failing  double ;  I  cut  off  the  coupons  and  am  removed 
from  all  the  affairs  of  the  world.  Whom  am  I  harming  ? 
I  am  a  most  innocuous  and  kindly  man.  But  this  is 
only  playing  lotto  or  roulette,  where  I  do  not  see  the 
man  who  shoots  himself  on  account  of  his  losses,  while 
it  furnishes  me  those  little  coupons  which  I  regularly 
cut  off  at  a  right  angle  from  the  bonds. 


164  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

4 

I  have  done  nothing  and  will  do  nothing  but  cut  off 
those  little  coupons,  and  I  believe  firmly  that  money  is 
a  representative  of  labour.  How  strange !  And  they 
talk  of  insane  persons !  What  madness  can  be  more 
terrible  than  this  ?  A  clever  and  learned  man,  who  in 
all  other  things  is  sensible,  hves  senselessly  and  eases  his 
conscience  by  not  enunciating  the  one  word  which  it  is 
necessary  to  say  that  there  may  be  a  meaning  to  his 
reflection,  and  considers  himself  righteous.  The  little 
coupons  are  representatives  of  labour  !  Of  labour  !  Yes, 
but  whose  labour  ?  Obviously  not  his  who  owns  it,  but 
his  who  works. 

Money  is  the  same  as  slavery ;  it  has  the  same  aims 
and  the  same  consequences.  Its  aim  is  the  liberation  of 
self  from  the  original  law,  as  a  profound  writer  from  the 
masses  has  correctly  said,  —  from  the  natural  law  of  life, 
as  we  call  it,  from  the  law  of  personal  labour  for  the 
gratification  of  one's  wants.  The  consequences  of  money 
are  the  same  as  those  of  slavery  were  for  the  owner :  the 
breeding  and  invention  of  new  and  endlessly  new  wants, 
which  can  never  be  satisfied,  pampered  wretchedness, 
debauch ;  and  for  the  slaves  :  the  oppression  of  man,  his 
reduction  to  the  level  of  an  animaL 

Money  is  a  new  and  terrible  form  of  slavery,  and,  like 
the  old  form  of  personal  slavery,  it  corrupts  both  the 
slave  and  the  slave-owner,  but  it  is  even  much  worse 
because  it  frees  the  slave  and  the  slave-owner  from  per- 
sonal human  relations. 


XXII. 

I  HAVE  always  to  marvel  at  the  words  frequently  re- 
peated :  "  Yes,  that  is  so  m  theory,  but  how  is  it  in  prac- 
tice ? "  Just  as  though  theory  were  a  series  of  fine  words 
which  are  needed  for  conversation,  but  not  that  practice, 
that  is,  all  activity,  should  inevitably  be  based  upon  it. 
There  must  have  existed  a  terrible  lot  of  stupid  theories 
in  the  world,  if  such  a  remarkable  reflection  has  passed 
into  use.  Theory  is  what  a  man  thinks  about  a  subject, 
and  practice  is  what  he  does.  How,  then,  can  a  man 
think  that  it  is  necessary  to  do  something  in  a  certain 
way,  and  do  the  opposite  ?  If  the  theory  of  bread-baking 
is  this,  that  the  dough  has  first  to  be  made  and  then  be 
left  to  rise,  then,  outside  of  crazy  men,  no  one  who  knows 
the  theory  will  do  the  opposite.  But  it  has  become  a 
fashion  with  us  to  say  that  this  is  a  theory,  and  how  is  it 
in  practice  ? 

In  the  subject  which  interests  me  there  has  been  con- 
firmed what  I  have  always  thought,  that  the  practice 
inevitably  follows  from  the  theory :  not  that  it  justifies  it, 
but  that  it  cannot  be  anything  else ;  that,  if  I  have  come 
to  understand  the  matter  of  which  I  have  been  thinking, 
I  cannot  do  it  otherwise  than  in  the  manner  in  which  I 
understand  it. 

I  wanted  to  help  the  poor  only  because  I  had  money 
and  because  I  shared  the  general  confidence  that  money 
was  a  representative  of  labour,  or  in  general  something 
lawful  and  good.  But,  when  I  began  to  give  the  money, 
I  saw  that  what  I  was  giving  was  the  notes  against  the 
poor  which  I  had  collected,  and  that  I  was  doing  what 

166 


166  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

many  proprietors  used  to  do  when  they  compelled  certain 
serfs  to  serve  others.  I  saw  that  every  use  of  money  — 
whether  it  be  the  purchase  of  something,  or  the  transmis- 
sion of  the  money  to  another  for  nothing  —  was  the 
sending  to  protest  of  a  note  against  the  poor,  or  the  trans- 
ference of  the  same  to  another  person  for  the  purpose  of 
sending  it  to  protest  against  the  poor.  And  so  I  clearly 
saw  the  insipidity  which  I  was  trying  to  commit,  —  to 
help  the  poor  by  exacting  from  the  poor.  I  saw  that 
money  in  itself  not  only  failed  to  be  good,  but  was  also 
an  obvious  evil  which  deprived  people  of  their  chief  good, 
of  labour,  and  of  the  use  of  this,  their  own  labour,  and 
that  I  was  unable  to  transmit  this  good  to  any  one, 
because  I  was  myself  deprived  of  it :  I  have  no  labour  and 
am  not  so  fortunate  as  to  make  use  of  my  own  labour. 

One  would  think  that  there  was  nothing  peculiar  in 
this  reflection  as  to  what  money  is.  But  this  reflection, 
which  I  made  not  for  the  mere  sake  of  reflecting,  but  in 
order  to  solve  the  question  of  my  life,  my  suffering,  was 
for  me  an  answer  to  the  question  as  to  what  should  be 
done. 

The  moment  I  understood  what  wealth  was,  what 
money  was,  it  not  only  became  clear  to  me  what  I  had 
to  do,  but  it  also  became  clear  and  indubitable  to  me 
what  all  others  ought  to  do,  and  that  they  inevitably 
would  do  it.  In  reality  I  understood  nothing  but  what 
I  had  known  long  ago,  —  the  truth  which  had  been  trans- 
mitted to  men  since  the  most  remote  times  by  Buddha, 
and  Isaiah,  and  Lao-tse,  and  Socrates,  and  was  particu- 
larly clearly  and  indubitably  transmitted  to  us  by  Jesus 
Christ  and  his  predecessor,  John  the  Baptist.  In  reply  to 
men's  questions  as  to  what  they  should  do,  he  answered 
simply,  briefly,  and  clearly,  He  that  hath  two  coats,  let 
him  impart  to  him  that  hath  none ;  and  he  that  hath  meat, 
let  him  do  likewise  (Luke  iii.  10,  11). 

The  same,  with  greater  clearness  and  frequently,  was 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  167 

said  by  Christ.  He  said,  Blessed  are  the  poor,  and  woe 
to  the  rich.  He  said  that  one  could  not  serve  God  and 
Mammon.  He  forbade  his  disciples  to  take,  not  only- 
money,  but  even  two  coats.  He  said  to  the  rich  young 
man  that  he  could  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
because  he  was  rich,  and  that  it  was  easier  for  a  camel  to 
pass  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man 
to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  He  said  that  he  who 
would  not  leave  everything,  his  house,  and  children,  and 
fields,  in  order  to  follow  him,  was  not  his  disciple.  He 
spoke  a  parable  about  the  rich  man  who  did  no  wrong, 
hke  our  own  rich,  but  dressed  himself  well  and  ate  and 
drank  good  food,  and  who  thus  lost  his  soul,  and  about 
poor  Lazarus,  who  did  no  good,  but  who  saved  himself 
merely  by  being  poor. 

That  truth  was  sufficiently  well  known  to  me,  but  the 
fallacious  teachings  of  the  world  had  dimmed  it  so  that 
it  had  become  for  me  a  theory,  in  the  sense  which  people 
are  fond  of  ascribing  to  the  word,  that  is,  idle  words. 
But  as  soon  as  I  succeeded  in  destroying  in  my  conscious- 
ness the  sophisms  of  the  worldly  teaching,  the  theory 
blended  with  the  practice,  and  the  reality  of  my  life  and 
of  the  life  of  all  men  became  its  inevitable  consequence. 

I  understood  that  man,  in  addition  to  his  life  for  his 
personal  good,  must  inevitably  also  serve  the  good  of 
other  men;  that,,  if  we  are  to  take  an  example  from 
the  life  of  animals,  as  certain  people  are  fond  of  doing, 
defending  violence  and  struggle  by  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence in  the  animal  kingdom,  the  comparison  ought  to  be 
taken  from  among  the  social  animals,  such  as  the  bees, 
and  that,  therefore,  man,  to  say  nothing  of  his  innate  love 
for  his  neighbour,  by  reason  and  by  his  own  nature  is 
called  to  serve  other  people  and  the  common  human  ends. 
I  understood  that  the  natural  law  of  man  was  only  that 
which  made  it  possible  for  him  to  fulfil  his  destiny, 
and  so  be  happy.     I  understood  that  this  law  had  been 


168  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

impaired  by  this,  that  men,  like  the  plunderer  bees,  free 
themselves  through  violence  from  labour,  and  exploit  the 
labour  of  others,  directing  this  labour,  not  to  a  common 
aim,  but  to  the  personal  gratification  of  multiplying 
passions  (lusts),  and  that,  like  the  plunderer  bees,  they 
perish  from  this.  I  understood  that  men's  misfortune 
was  due  to  the  slavery  in  which  one  set  of  men  held  other 
men.  I  understood  that  the  slavery  of  our  time  was  pro- 
duced by  the  violence  of  militarism,  by  the  appropriation 
of  land,  and  the  exaction  of  money.  And,  having  come 
to  understand  the  meaning  of  all  three  instruments  of 
the  new  slavery,  I  could  not  help  but  wish  to  be  freed 
from  a  participation  in  it. 

When  I  was  a  slave-owner,  possessing  serfs,  and  com- 
prehended the  immorality  of  this  situation,  I  tried  at 
that  time,  in  company  with  other  people  who  understood 
it,  to  free  myself  from  that  situation.  My  liberation  con- 
sisted in  this,  that,  as  I  considered  myself  immoral,  I 
tried,  so  long  as  I  was  not  able  to  free  myself  completely 
from  this  situation,  to  urge  as  httle  as  possible  my  rights 
as  a  slave-owner,  and  to  live  and  let  the  people  live  in 
such  a  way  as  though  these  rights  did  not  exist,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  use  every  effort  in  impressing  the 
other  slave-owners  with  the  lawlessness  and  inhumanity 
of  their  imaginary  rights. 

I  cannot  help  but  do  the  same  in  respect  to  the  present 
slavery :  as  little  as  possible  urge  my  rights,  so  long  as  I 
am  not  able  completely  to  renounce  these  rights,  which  are 
given  to  me  by  land-ownership  and  by  money,  and  which 
are  supported  by  the  violence  of  militarism,  and  at  the 
same  time  with  all  my  means  impress  upon  other  people 
the  lawlessness  and  inhumanity  of  these  imaginary  rights. 
The  participation  in  slavery  on  the  side  of  the  slave-owner 
consists  in  the  exploitation  of  other  people's  labour,  no 
matter  whether  the  slavery  is  based  on  my  right  to  the 
slave,  or  on  my  ownership  of  land,  or  on  money. 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  169 

And  so,  if  a  man  indeed  dislikes  slavery  and  does  not 
wish  to  be  a  participant  in  it,  the  first  thing  he  will  do 
will  be  this,  that  he  will  not  make  use  of  other  people's 
labour,  either  through  the  ownership  of  land,  or  through 
serving  the  government,  or  through  money. 

But  the  refusal  to  employ  any  of  the  means  in  use  for 
the  purpose  of  exploiting  other  people's  labour  will  inevi- 
tably bring  such  a  man  to  the  necessity,  on  the  one  hand, 
of  curtailing  his  needs,  and,  on  the  other,  of  doing  for 
himself  what  formerly  others  did  for  him. 

This  simple  and  inevitable  inference  enters  into  all  the 
details  of  my  hfe,  modifies  it  all,  and  at  once  frees  me 
from  those  moral  sufferings  which  I  used  to  experience 
at  the  sight  of  the  suffering  and  the  debauchery  of  men, 
and  at  once  destroys  all  those  three  causes  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  helping  the  poor,  at  which  I  arrived  in  seeking 
the  causes  for  my  failure. 

The  first  cause  was  the  crowding  of  people  into  the 
cities  and  the  swallowing  up  in  the  cities  of  the  wealth 
of  the  country.  A  man  need  but  have  the  desire  not  to 
exploit  the  labours  of  others  by  means  of  serving  the 
government  and  owning  land  and  money,  and  therefore  to 
satisfy  his  needs  himself  to  the  best  of  his  strength  and 
abihty,  in  order  that  it  should  never  occur  to  him  to  leave 
the  village  (in  which  it  is  easiest  of  all  to  satisfy  one's 
wants)  for  the  city,  where  everything  is  the  product  of 
somebody  else's  labour,  where  everything  has  to  be 
bought;  and  then,  in  the  country,  a  man  will  be  able 
to  help  the  needy,  and  he  will  not  experience  that  feeling 
of  helplessness  which  I  experienced  in  the  city,  when  I 
tried  to  help  people,  not  by  means  of  my  own  labour,  but 
by  that  of  others. 

The  second  cause  was  the  disunion  between  the  rich 
and  the  poor.  A  man  need  but  wish  not  to  exploit  other 
people's  labour  by  means  of  service,  of  ownership  of  land, 
and  of   money,  in  order  to  be  put  to  the  necessity  of 


170  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

satisfying  his  own  wants,  and  immediately  the  wall  will 
be  destroyed  which  separates  him  from  the  working  people, 
and  he  will  blend  with  them,  and  will  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  them,  and  will  have  the  possibility  of  help- 
ing them. 

The  third  cause  was  shame,  which  was  based  on  the 
consciousness  of  the  immorality  of  my  possession  of  that 
money  with  which  I  wanted  to  help  others.  We  need 
but  wish  not  to  exploit  other  people's  labour  by  means 
of  service,  of  ownership  of  land,  and  of  money,  and  we 
shall  never  have  that  superfluous  fool's  money,  the  presence 
of  which  with  me  has  provoked  in  people  who  have  no 
money  certain  demands  which  I  could  not  satisfy,  and  in 
me  —  a  feeling  of  the  consciousness  of  my  unrighteousness. 


XXIII. 

I  SAW  that  the  cause  of  men's  suffering  and  debauchery- 
was  this,  that  certain  people  were  in  slavery  to  others, 
and  so  I  drew  the  simple  conclusion  that,  if  I  wished  to 
help  others,  I  must  first  of  all  stop  causing  those  mis- 
fortunes which  I  wish  to  assist,  that  is,  not  take  part  in 
the  enslavement  of  men.  But  what  had  been  urging  me 
to  enslave  people  was  the  fact  that  I  had  been  accustomed 
from  childhood  not  to  work,  but  to  make  use  of  the 
labours  of  other  people,  and  that  I  had  been  living  in  a 
society  which  not  only  was  used  to  this  enslavement  of 
other  people,  but  also  justified  this  enslavement  with  all 
kinds  of  clever  and  insipid  sophisms.  I  drew  the  follow- 
ing simple  conclusion  that,  in  order  that  I  might  not 
cause  people's  suffering  and  debauchery,  I  must  as  little 
as  possible  make  use  of  the  work  of  others,  and  myself 
work  as  much  as  possible.  By  a  long  path  I  came  to  the 
inevitable  conclusion  which  a  thousand  years  ago  was 
made  by  the  Chinese  in  this  utterance :  "  If  there  is  one 
idle  man,  there  is  another  who  is  starving."  I  came  to 
this  simple  and  natural  conclusion  that,  if  I  pitied  that 
worn-out  horse  which  I  was  riding,  the  first  thing  I  ought 
to  do,  if  I  really  was  sorry  for  it,  was  to  get  off  and 
walk. 

This  answer,  which  gives  such  complete  satisfaction  to 
the  moral  feeling,  begged  for  my  recognition,  and  begs 
for  the  recognition  of  all  of  us,  but  we  do  not  see  it  and 
look  aside. 

In  our  search  after  a  cure  for  our  social  diseases  we 
look  about  on  all   sides,  —  in   governmental,  and  anti- 

171 


172  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

goverD mental,  and  scientific,  and  philanthropic  supersti- 
tions, and  we  do  not  see  what  strikes  our  eyes. 

We  use  the  vessel  in  the  house,  and  want  others  to 
carry  it  out,  and  pretend  that  we  suffer  for  them,  and 
want  to  make  it  easier  for  them,  and  invent  all  kinds  of 
devices,  except  the  simplest  one,  that  of  carrying  it  out 
ourselves,  if  we  wish  to  use  it  in  the  house,  or  else  going 
back  of  the  bam. 

For  him  who  sincerely  suffers  in  seeing  the  men  who 
surround  us  suffer,  there  is  a  very  clear,  simple,  and  easy 
means,  the  only  possible  one  for  the  cure  of  the  evils 
which  surround  us  and  for  the  recognition  of  the  lawful- 
ness of  our  life,  —  the  same  that  John  the  Baptist  gave  to 
the  question.  What  shall  we  do  then  ?  and  which  Christ 
confirmed :  not  to  have  more  than  one  garment  and  not  to 
have  money,  that  is,  not  to  make  use  of  the  labours  of 
others,  and  so  first  of  all  to  do  with  our  own  hands  what 
we  are  able  to  do. 

That  is  so  simple  and  so  clear.  But  that  is  simple  and 
clear  when  the  wants  are  clear  and  simple,  and  when  a 
man  himself  is  fresh  and  not  corrupted  to  the  core  through 
laziness  and  idleness.  I  live  in  the  village,  lying  on  the 
oven,  and  order  my  debtor  next  door  to  chop  wood  and 
make  a  fire  in  the  oven.  It  is  very  clear  that  I  am  lazy 
and  am  taking  my  neighbour  away  from  his  work  ;  and 
I  shall  feel  ashamed,  and  it  will  be  tiresome  for  me  to 
lie  all  the  time,  and  if  my  muscles  are  strong  and  I  am 
accustomed  to  work,  I  shall  go  and  chop  the  wood  myself. 

But  the  offence  of  slavery  in  all  kinds  of  forms  has 
existed  so  long ;  so  many  artificial  wants  have  grown 
up  on  it;  so  many  people  in  various  stages  of  habits  as 
regards  these  wants  are  interrelated ;  men  have  been  so 
spoiled  and  so  pampered  for  generations ;  such  complex 
temptations  and  justifications  in  their  luxury  and  their 
idleness  have  been  invented  by  people,  that  for  a  man 
who  is  at  the  top  of  the  ladder  of  idle  people  it  is  far 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  173 

from  being  so  easy  to  understand  his  sin,  as  for  a  peasant 
who  compels  his  neighbour  to  make  a  fire  in  his  oven. 

For  people  who  are  on  the  uppermost  rung  of  this 
ladder  it  is  terribly  hard  to  understand  what  it  is  that 
is  demanded  of  them.  Their  heads  are  dizzy  from  the 
height  of  that  ladder  of  lie  on  which  they  stand,  when 
they  behold  that  spot  on  the  earth  to  which  they  must 
descend  in  order  to  begin  their  life,  not  well,  but  only  not 
entirely  inhumanely ;  and  it  is  from  this  that  the  simple 
and  clear  truth  seems  so  terrible  to  them. 

To  a  man  with  ten  servants,  hveries,  coachmen,  a  chef, 
pictures,  pianos,  it  wiU  appear  strange  and  even  ridiculous 
to  do  what  is  the  simplest  and  the  first  action  of  each 
man,  not  necessarily  a  good  man,  but  one  who  is  not  an 
animal:  to  chop  his  own  wood,  with  which  his  food  is 
prepared  and  which  furnishes  him  heat ;  to  clean  his 
own  overshoes  or  boots,  with  which  he  has  carelessly 
stepped  into  the  mud;  to  fetch  his  own  water,  with 
which  he  makes  his  ablutions,  and  to  carry  out  the  dirty 
water  in  which  he  has  washed  himself. 

But,  besides  the  very  remoteness  of  people  from  the 
truth,  there  is  also  another  cause  which  keeps  people 
from  seeing  the  obligatoriness  for  them  of  the  simplest 
and  most  natural  personal  physical  work :  it  is  the  com- 
plexity, the  interworking  of  the  conditions,  of  the  advan- 
tages of  all  people  who  are  connected  with  one  another,  in 
which  a  rich  man  lives. 

This  morning  I  went  out  into  the  corridor  where  the 
fires  are  made  in  the  stoves.  A  peasant  was  making  a 
fire  in  the  stove  which  heats  my  son's  room.  I  went  in 
to  see  him :  he  was  asleep.  It  was  eleven  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  It  was  a  holiday,  and  so  the  excuse,  —  there 
were  no  lessons. 

The  smooth-looking,  eighteen-year-old  lad  with  a  beard, 
having  eaten  a  great  deal  in  the  evening,  is  sleeping  until 
eleven  o'clock,  but  the  peasant,  who  is  of  his  age,  got  up 


174  WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO   THEN? 

in  the  morning,  has  finished  a  lot  of  work,  and  is  making 
a  fire  in  the  tenth  stove,  but  he  is  asleep.  "  If  only  the 
peasant  did  not  make  a  fire  in  his  stove,  in  order  to  warm 
up  his  sleek,  lazy  body  ! "  I  thought.  But  immediately  I 
recalled  that  this  stove  warmed  also  the  room  of  the 
stewardess,  a  woman  of  forty  years  of  age,  who  the  night 
before  had  worked  until  three  o'clock  in  the  night,  in 
order  to  get  everything  ready  for  the  supper,  which  my 
son  also  ate,  and  had  cleaned  away  the  dishes,  and  still 
had  got  up  at  seven  o'clock.  The  peasant  is  making  the 
fire  for  her,  too.  And  the  lazy  fellow  is  getting  his  heat, 
which  is  to  be  put  down  to  her  account. 

It  is  true,  the  advantages  of  all  men  are  interwoven, 
but  even  without  any  prolonged  calculation  the  conscience 
of  each  man  tells  him  on  whose  side  is  the  labour,  and  on 
whose  the  idleness.  But  it  is  not  merely  conscience  that 
tells ;  it  is  the  ledger  that  shows  it  in  the  clearest  manner 
possible.  The  more  money  one  spends,  the  more  he  causes 
others  to  work  for  him  ;  the  less  he  spends,  the  more  he 
works. 

And  industry,  and  public  undertakings,  and  finally  the 
most  terrible  of  words,  —  culture,  and  the  evolution  of 
the  sciences  and  arts? 


XXIV. 

In  March  of  last  year  I  returned  home  late  in  the  even- 
ing. As  I  turned  from  Zubov  Lane  into  Khamovnicheski 
Lane,  I  saw  some  black  spots  in  the  snow  of  Virgin  Field. 
Something  was  moving  about  in  that  place.  I  should 
have  paid  no  attention  to  this,  if  a  policeman  who  was 
standing  at  the  entrance  of  the  lane  had  not  called  out 
in  the  direction  of  the  black  spots : 

"  Vasili,  why  don't  you  come  along  ?  " 

"  She  won't  go ! "  a  voice  answered  from  there,  and 
thereupon  the  black  spots  moved  toward  the  policeman. 

I  stopped  to  ask  the  policeman  what  it  was.  He 
said: 

"They  took  in  the  girls  of  Ezhanov  House  and  led 
them  to  the  station,  but  this  one  fell  behind,  and  wiU 
not  move." 

A  janitor  in  a  sheepskin  coat  was  leading  her.  She 
was  walking  in  front,  and  he  kept  pushing  her  from 
behind.  All  of  us,  the  janitor,  the  policeman,  and  I, 
were  wearing  our  winter  furs,  but  she  had  only  a  skirt 
on.  In  the  darkness  I  could  make  out  a  brown  dress, 
and  a  kerchief  on  her  head  and  neck.  She  was  small  of 
stature,  like  an  abortion :  her  legs  were  short,  and  her 
figure  was  out  of  proportion,  broad  and  unshapely. 

"  You,  wench,  keep  us  standing  here.  Go  on,  I  say ! 
ni  teach  you  ! "  shouted  the  policeman. 

He  was  evidently  getting  tired,  and  annoyed  at  her. 
She  made  a  few  steps,  and  stopped  again.  The  old  janitor, 
a  good-natured  man  (I  know  him),  pulled  her  hand. 

"  Come  now,  go  on  !  "  he  pretended  to  be  angry. 

175 


176  WHAT   SHALL    WE   DO   THEN? 

She  tottered  and  began  to  speak  with  a  wheezing  voice. 
In  every  sound  there  was  a  false  note,  a  snoring,  and  a 
squeakc 

"  Don't  push  me  !     I'll  get  there  ! " 

"  You  will  freeze  to  death,"  said  the  janitor.  V 

"  The  kind  I  am  do  not  freeze,  —  I  am  of  the  warm 
kind." 

She  meant  to  be  jesting,  but  her  words  sounded  like 
scolding.  Near  a  lamp-post  which  is  not  far  from  the 
gate  of  our  house  she  stopped  again,  leaning,  almost 
throwing  herself  on  the  fence,  and  began  to  rummage 
in  her  skirts  with  her  awkward,  frosted  hands.  Again 
they  shouted  to  her,  but  she  only  gurgled,  and  continued 
doing  something.  In  one  hand  she  held  a  cigarette  bent 
into  an  arc,  and  in  the  other  she  had  some  matches.  I 
stopped  behind  her ;  I  felt  ashamed  to  pass  by  her,  and 
yet  ashamed  to  stand  and  gaze.  Finally  I  made  up  my 
mind  and  went  up  to  her. 

She  was  lying  with  her  shoulder  against  the  fence, 
and  uselessly  kept  striking  matches  against  the  fence,  and 
throwing  them  away.  I  scanned  her  face.  She  was 
indeed  an  abortion,  but,  as  I  thought,  an  old  woman,  —  I 
gave  her  thirty  years.  The  colour  of  her  face  was  sallow  ; 
her  eyes,  small,  turbid,  bloodshot ;  her  nose  knob-shaped  ; 
her  lips  crooked,  slavering,  and  sunken  at  the  corners ; 
and  a  short  strand  of  dry  hair  peeped  out  from  under- 
neath her  kerchief.  Her  waist  was  long  and  flat,  and 
her  arms  and  legs  were  short.  I  stopped  opposite  her.  She 
looked  at  me  and  smiled,  as  though  she  knew  everything 
I  was  thinking  about. 

I  felt  that  I  had  to  say  something  to  her.  I  wanted 
to  show  her  that  I  was  sorry  for  her. 

"  Have  you  any  parents  ?  "  I  asked. 

She  laughed  hoarsely,  then  suddenly  stopped,  and 
raising  her  eyebrows,  gazed  at  me. 

«  Have  you  any  parents  ? "  I  repeated. 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  177 

She  smiled  with  an  expression  which  seemed  to  say: 
"  What  makes  him  trouble  himself  to  ask  me  ? " 

"  I  have  a  mother,"  she  said.     "  What  is  that  to  you  ?  '* 

"  And  how  old  are  you  ? " 

"  Going'on  sixteen,"  she  said,  replying  readily,  evidently 
to  a  habitual  question. 

"  March  !  You  make  me  freeze,  —  the  devil  take  you ! " 
shouted  the  policeman ;  and  she  tottered  away  from  the 
fence,  and,  swaying  to  and  fro,  went  down  Khamovnicheski 
Lane  to  the  station,  while  I  turned  into  the  gate  and  went 
home,  where  I  asked  whether  my  daughters  had  returned. 
I  was  told  that  they  had  been  to  an  evening  entertain- 
ment, had  had  a  good  time,  and  were  back  home,  asleep. 

The  next  morning  I  wanted  to  go  to  the  police  station 
to  find  out  what  became  of  that  unfortunate  woman,  and 
I  got  ready  to  go  quite  early,  when  I  received  the  visit  of 
one  of  those  unfortunate  men  of  the  gentry  who  in  their 
weakness  stray  from  their  lordly  life  and  now  rise  and 
now  fall  again.  I  had  known  him  for  three  years.  Dur- 
ing these  three  years  he  had  several  times  squandered 
everything  he  had,  even  the  garments  on  his  back ;  just 
such  a  misfortune  had  befallen  him  lately,  and  for  the 
time  being  he  passed  his  nights  in  Rzhanov  House,  in  a 
night  lodging  apartment,  and  in  the  daytime  came  to  see 
me.  He  met  me  as  I  was  going  out,  and,  without  listening 
to  what  I  had  to  say,  began  to  tell  me  what  had  happened 
in  the  night  in  Rzhanov  House.  He  did  not  half  finish 
his  story ;  he,  an  old  man  who  had  seen  all  manner  of 
people,  suddenly  burst  out  weeping  and  sobbing,  and, 
when  he  stopped,  he  turned  his  face  to  the  wall.  Every- 
thing he  told  me  was  an  absolute  truth.  I  verified  his 
story  on  the  spot,  and  learned  some  new  details,  which  I 
shall  not  give  with  the  story. 

In  the  night  lodging  apartment,  in  the  lower  story, 
Number  32,  in  which  my  friend  stayed,  there  was,  among 
the  number  of  transient  inmates,  men  and  women,  who 


178  WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

come  together  with  one  another  for  five  kopeks,  a  laun- 
dress, of  about  thirty  years  of  age,  a  blond,  quiet,  orderly, 
but  sickly  woman.  The  landlady  is  the  paramour  of  a 
boatman.  In  the  summer  her  cohabiter  keeps  a  boat,  and 
in  the  winter  they  make  a  Hving  by  letting  the  room  to 
night  lodgers,  —  three  kopeks  without  a  pillow,  and  five 
kopeks  with  a  pillow.  The  laundress  had  lived  there  for 
several  months,  and  was  a  quiet  woman ;  but  of  late  they 
began  to  dislike  her,  because  she  coughed  and  did  not  let 
the  inmates  sleep.  Especially  a  half-crazy  old  woman  of 
eighty  years,  who  was  also  a  constant  inmate  of  this 
apartment,  took  a  dislike  to  the  laundress,  and  nagged  her 
to  death,  because  she  would  not  let  her  sleep  and  kept 
clearing  her  throat  all  night  long,  like  a  sheep.  The 
laundress  kept  quiet,  —  she  was  in  debt  for  her  lodging 
and  felt  guilty,  and  so  she  had  to  be  quiet. 

She  went  less  and  less  frequently  to  work,  her  strength 
gave  out,  and  so  she  could  not  pay  the  landlady ;  the  last 
week  she  did  not  go  to  work  at  all,  and  with  her  cough- 
ing only  poisoned  the  lives  of  all,  especially  of  the  old 
woman,  who  did  not  go  out  herself.  Four  days  before, 
the  landlady  had  refused  to  give  her  lodging:  she  was 
owing  six  dimes,  did  not  pay  her  rent,  and  there  was  no 
hope  that  she  would  pay  it ;  and  the  cots  were  all  occu- 
pied, and  the  lodgers  complained  of  her  coughing. 

When  the  landlady  refused  to  give  lodging  to  the 
laundress  and  told  her  to  leave  the  room,  if  she  did  not 
pay,  the  old  woman  was  glad  and  pushed  the  laundress 
out-of-doors.  The  laundress  went  away,  but  came  back 
an  hour  later,  and  the  landlady  did  not  have  the  heart  to 
drive  her  away  again.  "  Where  shall  I  go  ? "  said  the 
laundress.  But  on  the  third  day  the  landlady's  paramour, 
a  Muscovite  who  knew  what  was  what,  went  for  a  police- 
man. The  pohceman,  with  a  sabre  and  a  pistol  on  a  red 
cord,  came  to  the  apartment  and,  politely  uttering  civil 
words,  led  the  laundress  out-of-doors. 


WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  179 

It  was  a  clear,  sunshiny,  but  cold  March  day.  Eunlets 
were  flowing,  and  janitors  were  chopping  wood.  The 
pubKc  sleighs  leaped  over  the  crusted  snow  and  screeched 
over  the  stones.  The  laundress  went  up-hill  on  the 
sunny  side,  reached  a  church,  and  sat  down  at  the  portals 
of  the  church,  on  the  sunny  side.  But  when  the  sun 
began  to  go  down  behind  the  houses  and  the  puddles 
were  sheeted  with  ice,  the  laundress  began  to  feel  cold 
and  chilly.  She  got  up  and  pulled  herself  along. 
Whither  ?  Home,  to  that  only  home  in  which  she  had 
lived  of  late.  Before  she  reached  the  house,  resting  on 
her  way,  it  grew  dark.  '  She  went  up  to  the  gate,  turned 
into  it,  slipped,  groaned,  and  fell  down. 

A  man,  another  passed.  "  No  doubt  drunk."  Another 
passed.  He  stumbled  over  the  laundress,  and  said  to  the 
janitor :  "  A  drunken  woman  is  wallowing  at  the  gate,  — 
I  almost  broke  my  head  falling  over  her ;  take  her  away, 
or  do  something  ! " 

The  janitor  went.  The  laundress  was  dead.  That  was 
what  my  friend  told  me.  People  may  think  that  I  have 
picked  out  the  facts,  —  the  meeting  with  a  fifteen-year- 
old  prostitute  and  the  story  of  this  laundress  ;  but  you 
must  not  think  so :  that  actually  happened  in  one  night 
in  March  of  1884,  though  I  do  not  remember  the  date. 

And  so,  after  hearing  my  friend's  story,  I  went  to  the 
police  station  in  order  to  go  from  there  to  Rzhanov  House, 
to  find  out  the  details  of  the  story  about  this  laundress. 
The  weather  was  fine,  the  sun  shone,  and  again  could  the 
running  water  be  seen  through  the  stars  of  the  night  frost 
in  the  shade,  while  in  Khamovnicheski  Square  everything 
melted  in  the  sun,  and  the  water  ran.  A  noise  came  up 
from  the  river.  The  trees  of  Neskiichni  Garden  could  be 
seen  in  the  blue  distance  across  the  river;  the  browned 
sparrows,  unnoticeable  in  winter,  struck  one's  eyes  with 
their  mirth ;  men,  too,  seemed  to  wish  to  be  merry,  but 
they  had  all  too  many  cares.     One  could  hear  the  ringing 


180  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

of  bells,  and  against  the  background  of  these  blending 
sounds  could  be  heard  the  sounds  of  firing  in  the  barracks, 
the  whistling  of  rifle-balls,  and  their  pinging  against  the 
target. 

I  came  to  the  police  station.  Here  a  few  armed  men, 
policemen,  took  me  to  their  chief.  He,  too,  was  armed 
with  a  sabre  and  a  pistol,  and  was  busy  giving  orders 
about  a  tattered,  shivering  old  man,  who  was  standing 
before  him  and  from  weakness  was  unable  to  answer  the 
questions  put  to  him.  Having  finished  his  business  with 
the  old  man,  he  turned  to  me.  I  asked  him  about  the 
girl  of  the  evening  before.  At  first  he  listened  attentively 
to  me,  and  then  smiled,  both  because  I  did  not  know  the 
regulation  about  taking  them  to  the  police  station,  and 
especially  because  I  was  surprised  at  her  youth. 

"Why,  there  are  some  of  twelve  years,  and  lots  of 
thirteen  and  fourteen,"  he  said,  cheerfully. 

In  reply  to  my  question  about  the  girl  of  the  evening 
before,  he  explained  to  me  that  they  had  all  of  them  been 
sent  to  the  committee  (I  think  I  am  right).  In  reply  to 
my  question  as  to  where  they  had  passed  the  night,  he 
answered  indefinitely.  He  did  not  remember  the  one  I 
was  talking  about,  —  there  were  so  many  of  them  each 
day. 

In  Ezhdnov  House  I  found,  in  Number  32,  the  sexton 
reading  the  prayers  over  the  deceased  woman.  She  had 
been  placed  on  what  had  been  her  cot,  and  the  lodgers, 
all  of  them  people  without  means,  had  collected  among 
themselves  money  for  the  mass,  the  coffin,  and  the  shroud, 
and  the  old  women  had  dressed  and  prepared  her.  The 
sexton  was  reading  in  the  darkness ;  a  woman  in  a  cloak 
was  standing  with  a  wax  taper,  and  another  taper  was 
held  by  a  man  (one  would  think  a  gentleman)  in  a  clean 
overcoat  with  an  astrakhan  collar,  shining  galoshes,  and  a 
starched  shirt.  This  was  her  brother.  They  had  found 
him. 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  181 

I  went  past  the  deceased  woman  to  the  landlady's 
comer,  and  asked  her  all  about  it. 

She  was  frightened  at  my  questions;  she  was  appar- 
ently afraid  lest  she  should  be  accused  of  something ; 
later  she  talked  more  freely,  and  told  me  everything. 
As  I  went  back  I  looked  at  the  dead  woman.  All  dead 
persons  are  beautiful,  but  this  one  was  especially  beauti- 
ful and  invited  sympathy  in  her  coffin :  her  face  was  clean 
and  pale,  with  closed,  bulging  eyes,  sunken  cheeks,  and 
soft  blond  hair  on  her  high  brow ;  her  face  looked  weary, 
kind,  and  not  sad,  but  surprised.  Indeed,  if  the  living  do 
not  see,  the  dead  are  surprised. 

On  the  day  on  which  I  noted  this  down  a  grand  ball 
was  given  in  Moscow. 

That  night  I  left  home  at  nine  o'clock.  I  live  in  a 
locality  which  is  surrounded  by  factories,  and  I  left  the 
house  after  the  whistles  of  the  factory  had  blown,  which 
after  a  week  of  unceasing  work  dismissed  the  people  for 
a  free  day. 

Factory  hands  rushed  by  me,  and  I  walked  past  factory 
hands  who  were  making  for  the  inns  and  restaurants. 
Many  were  already  drunk,  and  many  were  with  women. 

I  live  among  factories.  Every  morning  at  five  o'clock 
I  hear  a  whistle,  another,  a  third,  a  tenth,  and  so  on  and 
on.  That  means  that  the  work  of  the  women,  children, 
and  old  men  has  begun.  At  eight  o'clock  there  is  a 
second  whistle:  this  is  a  half -hour  intermission.  At 
noon  —  a  third :  this  is  an  hour  for  dinner ;  and  at  eight  — 
a  fourth :  the  end  of  work. 

By  a  strange  coincidence  all  three  factories  in  my 
neighbourhood  produce  nothing  but  articles  for  balls. 

In  the  one  nearest  to  me  they  manufacture  stockings ; 
in  another  —  silk  stuffs;  in  the  third  —  perfumes  and 
pomatum. 

It  is  possible  to  hear  these  whistles,  and  not  connect 
with  them  any  other  idea  than  the  definition   of  time. 


182  WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO    THEN? 

"Ah,  there  is  the  whistle,  and  so  it  is  time  to  take  a 
walk!"  But  it  is  also  possible  to  connect  with  these 
whistles  what  there  is  in  reality,  namely,  that  the  first 
whistle  at  five  in  the  morning  means,  that  people  who 
have  slept  in  a  damp  basement,  frequently  men  and 
women  indiscriminately  together,  are  getting  up  in  the 
dark  and  are  hastening  to  the  plant  where  the  machines 
whir,  to  take  their  places  at  their  work,  the  end  and  per- 
sonal use  of  which  they  do  not  see,  and  work,  frequently 
in  a  hot  and  stifling  atmosphere,  and  in  the  dirt,  with  a 
very  short  intermission,  an  hour,  two,  three,  twelve,  and 
more  hours  in  succession.  They  fall  asleep  and  again 
wake  up,  and  again  and  again  continue  the  same  senseless 
labour,  which  want  alone  compels  them  to  do. 

Thus  passes  one  week  after  another,  with  the  interrup- 
tion of  holidays,  and  even  now  I  see  the  labourers  who 
are  dismissed  for  one  of  these  holidays.  They  come  out 
into  the  street:  everywhere  are  restaurants,  the  Tsar's 
inns,  girls.  And  they  are  drunk  and  drag  one  another  by 
the  hand,  and  take  along  girls,  such  as  the  one  who  the 
day  before  was  taken  to  the  station,  and  hire  cabs,  and 
ride  in  them,  and  go  from  restaurant  to  restaurant, 
and  curse,  and  loaf,  and  talk,  themselves  not  knowing 
what.  I  had  seen  such  loafing  of  the  labourers  before, 
and  had  shunned  them  with  a  feeling  of  loathing,  and 
had  almost  rebuked  them ;  but  ever  since  I  have  been 
hearing  these  whistles  every  day  and  known  their  mean- 
ing, I  have  been  wondering  how  it  is  that  all  the  men  do 
not  join  those  gangs  of  which  Moscow  is  full,  and  that  all 
the  women  do  not  fall  to  the  condition  of  the  girl  whom 
I  met  near  my  house. 

I  walked  about,  watching  these  labourers,  who  loafed 
in  the  streets  until  eleven  o'clock.  After  that  the  anima- 
tion began  to  die  down  Here  and  there  a  few  drunken 
persons  were  left,  and  here  and  there  men  and  women 
were  being  taken  to  the  station.    Then  carriages  began  to 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  183 

make  their  appearance,  all  of  them  moving  in  the  same 
direction. 

On  the  box  of  each  carriage  there  is  a  coachman,  fre- 
quently in  a  sheepskin  coat,  and  a  lackey,  a  dandy  with  a 
cockade.  The  well-fed  trotters  in  housings  fly  through 
the  frost  at  a  rate  of  twenty  versts  an  hour ;  in  the  car- 
riages are  ladies,  who  are  wrapped  in  capes  and  who  are 
guarding  their  flowers  and  their  coiff'ures.  Everything, 
from  the  harness  on  the  horses,  the  carriages,  the  rubber 
tires,  the  cloth  of  the  coachman's  coat,  to  the  stockings, 
shoes,  flowers,  velvet,  gloves,  and  perfume,  —  all  that  is 
made  by  those  people  who  are  lying  drunk  on  their  cots 
in  sleeping  apartments,  or  are  passing  their  nights  with 
prostitutes  in  doss-houses,  or  are  locked  up  in  jails.  And 
the  visitors  to  the  ball  ride  past  them  in  everything  of 
theirs,  and  it  does  not  occur  to  them  that  there  is  any 
connection  between  the  ball  to  which  they  are  hastening 
and  these  drunkards  at  whom  the  coachmen  shout. 

These  people  enjoy  themselves  at  the  ball,  in  the  calm- 
est manner  possible  and  with  the  fullest  conviction  that 
what  they  are  doing  is  not  bad,  but  very  good.  They 
enjoy  themselves  1  They  enjoy  themselves  from  eleven 
until  six  in  the  morning,  through  the  deepest  night,  while 
these  people  are  tossing  with  empty  stomachs  in  lodging- 
houses,  and  some  of  them  die,  hke  the  laundress. 

Their  enjoyment  consists  in  this,  that  women  and 
girls,  baring  their  breasts  and  attaching  bustles  behind, 
get  themselves  up  in  an  indecent  manner  in  which  no 
uncorrupted  woman  or  girl  would  want  to  appear  before 
a  man ;  and  in  this  half-naked  condition,  with  protrud- 
ing bare  breasts,  arms  bare  to  the  shoulder,  artificial 
bustles,  and  prominent  hips,  in  the  most  glaring  light, 
the  women  and  the  girls,  whose  first  virtue  has  always 
been  modesty,  appear  amidst  strange  men,  who  themselves 
wear  indecently  close-fitting  garments,  and  they  embrace 
them  and  circle  around  with  them  to  the  sounds  of  intox- 


184  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN? 

icating  music.  Old  women,  who  frequently  are  as  much 
bared  as  the  younger  women,  sit  and  watch,  and  eat  and 
drink  what  tastes  good;  old  men  do  the  same.  No 
wonder  all  this  takes  place  in  the  night,  when  all  those 
people  are  asleep,  and  no  one  can  see  them.  But  this  is 
not  done  in  order  to  conceal  anything :  it  seems  to  them 
that  there  is  nothing  to  conceal,  that  it  is  very  good, 
and  that  with  this  enjoyment,  in  which  the  painful  labour 
of  thousands  of  people  is  used  up,  they  not  only  do  not 
offend  any  one,  but  even  support  the  poor  people. 

It  may  be  very  merry  at  balls ;  but  how  did  this  come 
about  ?  When  we  see  in  society  and  about  us  even  one 
man  who  has  not  eaten  or  is  sutfering  cold,  we  feel 
ashamed  to  make  merry,  until  that  man  gets  something 
to  eat  and  is  warmed  up,  to  say  nothing  of  this,  that  it  is 
impossible  to  imagine  people  making  merry  at  an  entertain- 
ment which  causes  suffering  to  others.  We  loathe  and 
cannot  understand  the  merriment  of  bad  boys  who  pinch 
a  dog's  tail  with  a  forked  stick  and  find  fun  in  doing  it. 

How  is  it,  then,  that  here,  in  these  our  entertainments, 
we  are  so  blind  as  not  to  see  the  forked  stick  with  which 
we  are  pinching  the  tails  of  all  those  people  who  suffer 
for  the  sake  of  our  entertainment  ? 

Not  a  woman  who  goes  to  this  ball  in  a  dress  costing 
150  roubles  was  born  at  a  ball  or  at  Madame  Minan- 
guoit's,  but  each  one  has  lived  in  the  country,  has  seen 
peasants,  and  knows  her  nurse  and  chambermaid,  who 
have  poor  fathers  and  brothers,  for  whom  the  earning  of 
150  roubles  with  which  to  build  a  hut  is  the  aim  of  a 
long  life  of  hard  labour  ;  she  knows  this  ;  how,  then,  can 
she  make  merry,  knowing  that  at  this  ball  she  is  wear- 
ing on  her  bared  body  that  hut  which  is  the  dream  of 
the  brother  of  her  good  chambermaid  ? 

But,  let  us  suppose  that  she  may  not  have  made  this 
reflection ;  one  would  think  she  could  not  help  knowing 
that  the  velvet  and  the  silk,  the  confectionery  and  the 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  185 

flowers,  and  the  laces,  and  the  dresses  do  not  grow  of 
their  own  accord,  but  are  made  by  men ;  she  cannot  help 
knowing  what  kind  of  people  make  all  these  things,  under 
what  conditions,  and  why.  She  cannot  help  knowing 
that  the  seamstress,  whom  she  scolded,  did  not  make  that 
dress  for  her  out  of  love  for  her ;  and  so  she  cannot  help 
knowing  that  all  this  was  done  for  her  from  want,  that,  like 
her  dress,  the  laces,  and  the  flowers,  and  the  velvet  were 
done  in  the  same  way.  But,  maybe,  they  are  so  befogged' 
that  they  do  not  see  this ;  but  the  woman  certainly  cannot 
fail  to  have  observed  that  five  or  six  respectable,  often 
sickly,  old  lackeys  and  maids  lost  sleep  while  busy  with 
her.  She  saw  their  gloomy  faces.  She  cannot  help 
knowing  that  this  night  the  frost  reached  28  degrees 
Eeaumur,  and  that  the  old  coachman  passed  the  whole 
night  on  the  box.  But  I  know  that  they,  indeed,  do  not 
see  any  of  these  things.  And  if  they,  these  young  women 
and  girls,  who  on  account  of  the  hypnotism  produced  on 
them  by  this  ball  do  not  see  all  this,  they  cannot  be  con- 
demned. These  poor  women  do  everything  which  is 
regarded  as  good  by  their  elders  ;  but  how  will  the  elders 
explain  their  cruelty  to  the  people  ? 

The  elders  will  always  give  this  one  explanation :  "  I  do 
not  force  a  soul ;  I  buy  the  things,  and  I  hire  the  serv- 
ants, the  maids,  and  the  coachmen.  There  is  nothing 
bad  in  buying  and  hiring.  I  do  not  force  a  soul,  —  I  hire 
them,  —  so  where  is  the  wrong  ? " 

The  other  day  I  called  on  an  acquaintance  of  mine. 
As  I  passed  through  the  first  room,  I  was  surprised  to  find 
two  women  there  at  the  table,  for  I  knew  that  my  acquaint- 
ance was  a  bachelor.  A  lean,  sallow,  old-looking  woman, 
of  about  thirty  years  of  age,  with  a  kerchief  thrown  over 
her  shoulders,  was  doing  something  very  rapidly  on  the 
table,  jerking  her  body  nervously,  as  though  in  a  fit. 
Diagonally  across  from  her  sat  a  little  girl,  who  was 
doing  something  in  the  same  way,  jerking  aU  the  time. 


186  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

Both  women  seemed  to  be  subject  to  the  St.  Vitus*s  dance. 
I  went  up  to  them,  and  took  a  glance  at  what  they  were 
doing.  They  cast  tbeir  eyes  up  at  me,  but  continued 
their  work  in  the  same  concentrated  manner.  Before 
them  lay  a  loose  heap  of  tobacco  and  paper  shells :  they 
were  making  cigarettes.  The  woman  rubbed  the  tobacco 
in  the  palms  of  her  hands,  filled  the  mould  with  it,  stuck 
a  shell  over  it,  pushed  the  tobacco  in,  and  threw  the 
cigarette  to  the  girl.  The  girl  rolled  up  a  piece  of  paper, 
and  stuck  the  wad  into  the  cigarette,  which  she  threw 
down,  to  pick  up  another.  All  this  was  done  with  such 
rapidity  and  with  such  tension  that  it  is  impossible  to 
describe  it  to  a  man  who  has  not  seen  it.  I  expressed 
my  surprise  at  their  rapidity. 

"  Have  been  doing  nothing  else  for  fourteen  years," 
said  the  woman. 

«  WeU,  is  it  hard  ? " 

"  Yes.  It  hurts  in  the  chest,  and  the  odour  is  hard 
to  bear." 

Indeed,  she  did  not  have  to  teU  me  so.  It  was  enough 
to  look  at  her  and  at  the  girl.  The  girl  has  been  working 
at  it  for  more  than  two  years ;  but  any  one  who  sees  her 
at  her  work  will  say  that  it  is  a  strong  organism  which 
is  beginning  to  decompose.  My  acquaintance,  a  good  and 
liberal  man,  hired  them  for  two  roubles  and  fifty  kopeks 
per  thousand.  He  has  money,  and  he  pays  them  for  their 
work,  so  where  is  the  harm  ?  My  acquaintance  gets  up  at 
noon.  The  evenings,  from  six  until  two,  he  passes  playing 
cards,  or  at  the  piano,  and  he  eats  and  drinfcs  savoury 
food ;  all  his  work  is  done  by  others.  He  is  trying  a 
new  pleasure,  smoking.  He  began  to  smoke  within  my 
memory. 

There  are  a  woman  and  a  girl  who  can  barely  support 
themselves  by  changing  themselves  into  machines  and  all 
their  lives  inhaling  tobacco,  and  who  thus  ruin  their  lives. 
He  has  money,  which  he  has  not  earned,  and  he  prefers 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  187 

to  play  vint  to  making  cigarettes  for  himself.  He  gives 
these  women  money  on  condition  that  they  continue  to 
live  just  as  wretchedly  as  before,  that  is,  that  they  make 
cigarettes  for  him. 

I  love  cleanliness  and  give  money  on  this  condition 
alone,  that  the  laundress  shall  wash  the  shirt  which  I 
change  twice  a  day,  and  this  shirt  has  worn  out  the 
laundress,  and  she  has  died. 

Where  is  the  wrong  here  ?  People  who  buy  and  hire 
will  continue  without  me  to  compel  others  to  make  velvet 
and  confections,  and  will  buy  them,  and  without  me  men 
will  hire  people  to  make  cigarettes  and  wash  shirts.  Why, 
then,  should  I  deprive  myself  of  velvet,  and  confections, 
and  cigarettes,  and  clean  shirts,  if  such  is  the  order  of 
things  ?  I  frequently,  almost  always,  hear  this  reflection. 
It  is  the  same  kind  of  a  reflection  that  a  maddened  crowd 
makes  when  it  destroys  something.  It  is  the  same  kind 
of  a  reflection  that  dogs  are  guided  by,  when  one  of  them 
knocks  down  another,  and  all  the  others  rush  upon  the 
under  dog  and  tear  it  to  pieces.  "  If  the  others  have  begun 
to  ruin  the  thing,  why  can't  I  do  it  also  ?  Well,  what 
wiU  happen  if  I  wear  a  dirty  shirt  and  make  my  own 
cigarettes  ?  Will  anybody  be  better  off  from  it  ? "  ask 
people  who  want  to  justify  themselves.  If  we  were  not 
so  far  from  the  truth,  it  would  be  a  shame  to  answer  such 
a  question ;  but  we  are  so  mixed  up  that  this  question 
seems  very  natural  to  us,  and  so,  though  we  feel  ashamed, 
we  must  answer  it. 

What  difference  will  there  be  if  I  wear  a  shirt  a  week, 
and  not  a  day,  and  make  my  own  cigarettes,  or  stop 
smoking  altogether  ? 

It  will  be  this,  that  some  laundress  and  some  maker  of 
cigarettes  will  strain  themselves  less,  and  this,  that  what 
before  I  spent  for  laundry  and  the  making  of  cigarettes,  I 
can  give  to  the  laundress,  or  to  other  laundresses  and 
labourers,  who  are  tired  by  their  work,  and  who,  instead 


188  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN? 

of  working  above  their  strength,  will  be  able  to  rest  and 
to  have  some  tea.  But  I  have  heard  objections  to  this. 
(Eich  and  elegant  people  are  so  ashamed  to  understand 
their  position.)  To  this  they  say  :  "  If  I  wear  dirty  linen 
and  stop  smoking,  and  give  this  money  to  the  poor,  the 
poor  will  none  the  less  be  despoiled  of  everything,  and 
your  drop  in  the  ocean  will  do  no  good." 

One  feels  even  more  ashamed  to  answer  this  objection, 
but  the  answer  has  to  be  given.  It  is  such  a  common 
objection.     The  answer  to  it  is  simple. 

If  I  come  to  savages,  and  they  treat  me  to  cutlets,  which 
seem  savoury  to  me,  and  I  on  the  following  day  learn 
(perhaps  I  see  it  myself)  that  the  savoury  cutlets  are  made 
of  the  flesh  of  a  captive  man,  who  was  killed  for  the 
purpose  of  furnishing  savoury  cutlets,  and  I  find  it  wrong 
to  eat  men,  —  then,  no  matter  how  good  the  cutlets  may 
taste,  no  matter  how  common  the  custom  of  devouring 
men  may  be  among  my  fellows,  no  matter  how  little  the 
captives  who  are  prepared  as  food  may  profit  from  my 
refusal  to  eat  the  cutlets,  I  shall  not  and  cannot  eat  them 
again.  Maybe  I  shall  devour  human  flesh  when  driven  to 
it  by  hunger,  but  I  shall  not  feast  any  one  and  shall  not 
take  part  in  a  feast  at  which  human  flesh  is  eaten,  and 
shall  not  look  for  such  feasts,  or  be  proud  of  taking  part 
in  them. 


XXV. 

But  what  shall  we  do  ?  We  certainly  did  not  do  this  ? 
If  not  we,  who  did  ?  We  say  that  we  did  not  do  it ;  it  just 
did  itself,  as  children  say,  when  they  break  something, 
that  it  just  broke  itself.  We  say  that  so  long  as  cities 
exist  and  we  live  in  them,  we  support  people  by  buying 
their  labour  for  the  purpose  of  serving  them. 

But  that  is  not  true,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  we 
need  only  look  at  ourselves,  to  see  how  we  live  in  the 
country,  and  how  we  there  support  people. 

The  winter  is  past  in  the  city,  and  Easter  week  comes. 
In  the  city  the  same  orgy  of  the  rich  is  continued :  in  the 
boulevards,  the  gardens,  and  the  parks,  and  on  the  river 
there  are  music,  theatres,  rides,  promenades,  all  kinds  of 
illuminations,  and  fireworks ;  but  in  the  country  it  is 
better:  the  air  is  better,  and  the  trees,  the  fields,  the 
flowers,  are  fresher.  We  must  go  where  all  this  is  budding 
and  flowering.  And  the  majority  of  the  rich  people,  who 
exploit  the  labours  of  others,  go  into  the  country,  to 
breathe  this  better  air  and  to  look  at  these  better  fields 
and  woods. 

And  so  the  rich  people  settle  in  the  country,  amidst 
dirty-looking  peasants,  who  live  on  bread  and  onions, 
work  eighteen  hours  a  day,  go  nights  without  getting 
enough  sleep,  and  wear  coarse  clothes.  Here  no  one  has 
tempted  the  people:  there  have  been  no  factories  here, 
and  there  are  none  of  those  unemployed  hands,  of  whom 
there  are  so  many  in  the  city,  and  whom  we  are  supposed 
to  be  feeding  by  giving  them  work.  Here  the  people  never 
get  enough  time  in  the  summer  to  do  all  their  work,  and 

189 


190  WHAT   SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

not  only  are  there  here  no  unemployed  hands,  but  much 
property  goes  to  ruin  from  lack  of  working  hands,  and  a 
mass  of  men,  children,  old  men,  and  women  with  children 
perish  from  overstraining  themselves.  How  do  the  rich 
arrange  their  lives  here  ? 

Like  this.  If  there  was  an  old  house,  which  was  built 
in  the  days  of  serfdom,  it  is  renovated  and  beautified ;  if 
there  is  none,  a  new  one,  two  or  three  stories  high,  is 
built.  The  rooms,  of  which  there  are  from  twelve  to 
twenty,  and  more,  are  all  about  six  arshins  in  height. 
The  floors  are  of  parquetry,  the  windows  have  large  panes  ; 
there  are  costly  carpets,  costly  furniture,  and  a  buffet 
costing  from  two  hundred  to  six  hundred  roubles. 

The  walks  near  the  house  are  made  with  gravel,  the 
ground  is  levelled  off  and  provided  with  garden  beds,  and 
croquet  grounds  are  laid  out;  they  put  up  reflecting 
globes,  frequently  greenhouses,  hotbeds,  and  high  stables, 
always  with  ornaments  on  the  ridge-piece.  Everything  is 
painted  with  oil-colours,  the  oil  being  what  the  old  men 
and  the  children  do  not  get  in  their  porridge. 

If  the  rich  man  is  able,  he  settles  in  such  a  house ;  if 
not,  he  hires  one ;  but  no  matter  how  poor  or  how  liberal 
a  man  from  our  circle  may  be,  when  he  settles  in  the 
country,  he  settles  in  a  house,  for  the  building  and  clean- 
Hness  of  which  it  is  necessary  to  take  dozens  of  people 
away  from  their  work,  though  they  have  not  time  enough 
to  attend  to  the  corn  for  their  own  sustenance. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  here  that  there  are  factories  and 
that  it  will  be  all  the  same,  whether  I  make  use  of  them 
or  not.  Here  we  directly  introduce  factories  of  things 
which  we  need,  and  directly,  by  exploiting  the  want  of 
the  people  who  surround  us,  tear  them  away  from  the 
work  which  is  necessary  for  them  and  for  us  and  for  all 
men,  and  thus  we  corrupt  one  set  of  men  and  ruin  the 
lives  and  the  health  of  other  men. 

Let  us  say,  a  cultured  and  honourable  family  from 


WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  191 

the  gentry  or  from  the  official  classes  is  living  in  the 
country. 

All  the  members  of  the  family  and  the  guests  come 
down  there  in  the  middle  of  June,  because  until  then  they 
have  been  studying  and  passing  examinations,  that  is, 
they  arrive  in  the  beginning  of  mowing-time.  The  mem- 
bers of  this  family  (like  nearly  all  people  of  this  circle) 
stay  in  the  country  from  the  beginning  of  the  busy  sea- 
son, the  haying-time,  not  to  its  end,  for  in  September  the 
sowing  and  the  potato-digging  is  still  going  on,  but  to 
the  time  of  slackening  the  intensity  of  the  labour. 

During  the  whole  time  of  their  stay  in  the  country 
there  is  going  on  around  them,  by  their  side,  that  summer 
work  of  the  peasants,  of  the  tension  of  which  we  cannot 
form  any  idea,  no  matter  how  much  we  may  have  heard 
of  it,  or  how  much  we  may  have  read  about  it,  or  looked 
at  it,  unless  we  experience  it  ourselves. 

The  members  of  the  family,  about  ten  of  them,  live  as 
badly  as  in  the  city,  even  worse,  if  such  thing  is  possible, 
than  in  the  city,  because  here  in  the  country  it  is 
assumed  that  the  members  of  the  family  are  resting  (from 
doing  nothing)  and  so  have  no  simiHtude  of  work,  no 
excuse  for  their  idleness. 

About  St.  Peter's  Day,  —  during  hungry  Lent,  when  the 
peasants'  food  consists  of  kvas,  bread,  and  onions, — 
the  mowing  begins.  The  gentlemen  who  live  in  the 
country  see  this  work,  partly  order  the  men  about,  partly 
enjoy  looking  at  it,  smelling  the  odour  of  the  wilting  hay, 
hearing  the  songs  of  the  women  and  the  clanking  of  the 
scythes,  and  seeing  the  rows  of  mowers  and  raking  women. 

They  see  this  near  the  house,  and  when  the  younger 
people  and  the  children,  who  have  been  doing  nothing 
the  whole  day,  are  sure  to  be  driven  on  well-fed  horses,  a 
distance  of  half  a  verst,  in  order  to  bathe  in  the  river. 

The  work  which  is  being  done  at  the  mowing  is  one  of 
the  most  important  in  the  world.     Nearly  every  year  the 


192  WHAT   SHALL   WE  DO  THEN? 

lack  of  hands  and  of  time  causes  the  mowings  to  remain 
partly  nnmown,  and  for  the  same  reason  the  meadows  are 
liable  to  be  spoiled  by  the  rain ;  the  more  or  less  tense 
work  decides  the  question  whether  twenty  or  more  per 
cent,  of  hay  will  be  added  to  the  wealth  of  the  people,  or 
whether  this  amount  will  rot,  or  harden  on  the  root.  If 
there  is  more  hay,  the  old  men  will  get  meat  to  eat,  and 
the  children  milk  to  drink.  Thus  it  is  in  general,  and  in 
particular  the  question  is  here  being  solved  for  every 
mower  as  to  the  bread  and  milk  for  himself  and  the 
children  in  the  winter.  Every  labouring  man  and  woman 
knows  this,  and  even  the  children  know  that  this  is  an 
important  work  and  that  it  is  necessary  for  them  to  work 
with  all  their  might  and  main,  —  to  carry  the  pitcher 
with  kvas  to  their  fathers  in  the  field,  and,  changing  the 
heavy  pitcher  from  hand  to  hand,  to  run  with  bare  feet 
and  as  fast  as  possible  the  two  versts  from  the  village,  in 
order  to  get  there  in  time,  and  keep  their  fathers  from 
scolding.  Everybody  knows  that  from  mowing-time 
until  the  harvest  there  will  be  no  interruption  in  the 
work  and  no  time  for  resting. 

And  it  is  not  the  mowing  alone,  for  everybody  has,  in 
addition  to  the  mowing,  other  work  to  do;  the  ground 
has  to  be  turned  up  and  harrowed ;  the  women  have  to 
attend  to  the  making  of  the  linen,  and  the  bread,  and  the 
washing  ;  and  the  men  have  to  go  to  mill,  and  to  the  city, 
and  to  attend  to  the  business  of  the  Commune,  and  go  to 
the  judge  and  to  the  captain,  and  look  after  the  wagons, 
and  feed  the  horses  at  night,  —  and  all,  the  old,  and  the 
young,  and  the  sick,  work  with  all  their  might.  The 
peasants  work  so  hard  that,  before  the  end  of  the  dayja 
work,  the  weak,  the  striplings,  and  the  old  walk  the  last 
rows  with  great  difl&culty,  tottering  as  they  walk,  and 
with  difficulty  get  up  after  a  rest;  similarly  work  the 
women,  who  are  often  pregnant  or  nursing  babies. 

The  work  is  tense  and  incessant.     All  work  with  all 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  193 

their  might,  and  during  this  work  not  only  eat  up  all 
the  supplies  of  their  scanty  food,  but  also  all  their  for- 
mer supplies :  all  of  them,  never  any  too  stout,  grow 
lean  after  their  summer's  work. 

Here  is  a  small  company  working  a-mowing:  three 
peasants,  —  one  old  man,  another,  his  nephew,  a  young 
married  lad,  and  a  shoemaker  of  the  manor,  a  muscular 
man.  This  mowing  decides  the  fate  of  the  winter  for 
them  all,  whether  they  can  keep  a  cow,  and  pay  their 
taxes.  They  have  been  working  without  cessation  and 
without  rest  for  two  weeks.  The  rain  has  retarded  their 
work.  After  the  rain,  when  the  grass  dried  in  the  wind, 
they  decided  to  finish  the  work  and,  to  do  the  work  more 
quickly,  they  determined  to  have  two  women  to  each 
scythe.  With  the  old  man  comes  out  his  wife,  fifty  years 
of  age,  worn  out  from  work  and  eleven  childbirths,  and 
deaf,  but  still  a  good  worker,  and  his  thirteen-year-old 
daughter,  a  rather  small,  but  strong  and  quick  girl.  With 
the  nephew  comes  out  his  wife,  a  powerful  and  tall 
woman,  as  strong  as  any  peasant,  and  his  sister-in-law, 
the  pregnant  wife  of  a  soldier.  With  the  shoemaker 
comes  his  wife,  a  good  worker,  and  her  mother,  an  old 
woman,  finishing  her  eighth  decade,  who  otherwise  is  out 
begging  alms.  They  start  out  in  a  row  and  work  from 
morning  until  night,  in  the  sweltering  heat  of  the  June  sun. 
They  hate  to  stop  their  work  to  fetch  some  water  or  kvas. 

A  tiny  boy,  the  old  woman's  grandchild,  fetches  the 
water.  The  old  woman,  who  seems  to  be  worrying  lest 
she  be  driven  away  from  the  work,  holds  on  to  the  rake 
and  moves  on  with  difficulty,  but  still  keeps  up  with  the 
rest.  The  boy  is  all  bent  up,  and  takes  short  steps  with 
his  bare  feet,  dragging  along  the  pitcher  of  water,  which 
is  heavier  than  he  himself,  and  changing  it  from  hand  to 
hand.  The  girl  shoulders  a  load  of  hay,  which  is  also 
heavier  than  she ;  she  takes  a  few  steps,  and  stops,  and 
throws  down  the  load,  unable  to  carry  it  any  longer.    The 


194  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

fifty-year-old  woman  is  raking  without  cessation  and,  with 
her  kerchief  knocked  to  one  side,  is  dragging  along  the  hay, 
breathing  heavily  and  tottering  in  her  walk ;  the  eighty- 
year-old  woman  does  nothing  but  rake,  but  even  that  is 
above  her  strength;  she  slowly  shuffles  her  bast  shoe 
covered  feet  and,  scowling,  looks  gloomily  in  front  of  her, 
like  a  dangerously  sick  or  dying  man.  The  old  man  pur- 
posely sends  her  away  from  the  rest  to  rake  near  the 
cocks,  so  that  she  may  not  keep  in  a  row  with  the  rest, 
but  she  does  not  give  up,  and  with  the  same  dead,  gloomy 
face  works  while  the  others  work. 

The  sun  is  setting  behind  the  forest,  and  the  cocks  are 
not  yet  all  cleared  away :  there  is  still  much  work  ahead. 

All  feel  that  it  is  time  to  take  a  rest,  but  nobody  speaks, 
waiting  for  the  others  to  say  it  is.  Finally  the  shoemaker, 
feeling  that  he  has  no  more  strength,  proposes  to  the 
old  man  to  leave  the  cocks  until  the  next  day,  and  the  old 
man  consents  to  it,  and  immediately  the  women  run  after 
their  clothes,  after  the  pitchers,  and  after  the  forks,  and 
the  old  woman  sits  down  at  once,  and  then  lies  down,  still 
looking  ahead  of  her  with  the  same  dead  glance.  But 
the  women  walk  away,  and  she  gets  up,  groaning,  and 
drags  herself  away  after  them. 

And  here  is  the  gentleman's  house.  That  same  even- 
ing, while  from  the  village  are  heard  the  sounds  of  the 
whetstones  of  the  weary  luowers,  returning  from  the  mow- 
ing, the  sounds  of  the  hammer  against  the  scythe-blade, 
the  shouts  of  the  women  and  girls  who,  having  barely  put 
down  their  rakes,  are  already  running  to  drive  the  cattle 
home,  —  in  the  house  of  the  gentleman  other  sounds  are 
heard :  the  banging  of  the  piano  is  heard,  there  resounds 
a  Hungarian  song,  and  now  and  then,  through  the  song, 
one  catches  the  sound  of  the  mallets  striking  the  croquet 
balls.  At  the  stable  stands  a  carriage  drawn  by  four  well- 
fed  horses.     It  is  the  carriage  of  the  foppish  driver. 

Guests  have  arrived:  they  paid  ten  roubles  for  being 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  195 

driven  fifteen  versts.  The  horses,  standing  at  the  car- 
riage, tinkle  with  their  little  bells.  There  is  hay  in  their 
trough,  and  they  trample  it  under  foot,  that  hay  which 
the  peasants  gather  with  such  difficulty  there  in  the  field. 
There  is  a  commotion  in  the  yard  of  the  manor  :  a  healthy- 
looking,  well-fed  lad  in  a  pink  shirt,  given  him  by  the 
janitor  for  his  service,  is  calling  to  the  coachmen  to  hitch 
and  saddle  the  horses.  Two  peasants,  who  live  here  as 
coachmen,  come  out  of  the  coachmen's  room  and  walk 
leisurely,  swaying  their  arms,  to  saddle  the  horses  for  the 
gentlemen. 

Still  nearer  to  the  house  the  sounds  of  another  piano 
are  heard.  A  conservatory  graduate,  who  is  living  with 
the  gentlefolk,  to  teach  the  children  music,  is  practising 
Schumann.  The  sounds  of  one  piano  break  in  on  those 
of  the  other.  Near  the  house  two  nurses  are  walking: 
one  of  them  is  young,  the  other  old.  They  are  leading 
and  carrying  children,  of  the  same  age  as  those  who  were 
carrying  the  pitchers  from  the  village,  to  put  them  to  bed. 
One  of  the  nurses  is  an  Englishwoman,  who  cannot  talk 
Eussian.  She  was  imported  from  England,  not  because 
she  is  supposed  to  have  any  special  qualifications,  but 
because  she  cannot  talk  Eussian.  Farther  down  a  peasant 
and  two  women  are  watering  the  flowers  near  the 
house,  while  another  is  cleaning  a  gun  for  the  young 
master. 

Here  two  women  are  carrying  a  basket  with  clean  un- 
derwear ;  they  have  washed  the  linen  of  the  family  and 
of  the  English  and  the  French  assistants.  In  the  house 
two  women  with  difficulty  manage  to  wash  all  the  dishes 
for  the  gentlefolk,  who  have  just  had  their  meal,  and  two 
peasants  in  dress  coats  are  running  up  and  down  on  the 
staircase,  passing  coffee,  tea,  wine,  Seltzer.  On  the  porch 
a  table  is  set:  they  have  just  finished  eating,  and  soon 
they  will  eat  again  until  cockcrow,  until  midnight,  until 
three  o'clock,  often  until  daybreak. 


196  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

Some  sit  and  smoke,  playing  cards;  others  sit  and 
smoke,  carrying  on  liberal  conversations ;  others  walk 
from  place  to  place,  eating  and  smoking,  and,  not  knowing 
what  to  do,  decide  to  go  out  riding.  There  are  fifteen 
able-bodied  men  and  women  there,  and  they  are  served 
by  about  thirty  able-bodied  men  and  women  servants. 

And  this  is  taking  place  where  every  hour,  every  lad,  is 
valuable.  And  this  will  take  place  in  July,  when  the 
peasants,  without  getting  enough  sleep,  will  mow  the  oats 
at  night,  to  keep  them  from  sheUing  out,  and  the  women 
will  get  up  at  night  in  order  to  thresh  the  straw  for  sheaf 
ropes,  when  the  old  women,  and  the  pregnant  women,  and 
the  young  children  will  overwork  and  get  sick  from  too 
much  drinking,  and  when  there  will  not  be  enough  hands, 
nor  horses,  nor  wagons,  to  take  to  the  bam  the  corn  which 
feeds  all  men,  of  which  milHons  of  puds  are  needed  a  day 
in  Eussia,  in  order  that  people  may  not  die ;  and  at  this 
time  this  Hfe  of  the  gentlefolk  will  be  continued,  —  there 
will  be  theatres,  picnics,  hunts,  drinking,  eating,  pianos, 
singing,  dancing,  —  an  unceasing  orgy. 

Here  it  is  impossible  to  give  the  excuse  that  such  is 
the  order  of  things :  nothing  of  the  kind  is  the  case.  We 
ourselves  introduce  this  life,  taking  the  bread  and  the 
labour  away  from  the  men  who  are  worn  out  by  labour. 
We  live  as  though  there  were  no  connection  between 
the  dying  laundress,  the  fourteen-year-old  prostitute,  the 
women  who  are  fagged  out  by  the  making  of  cigarettes, 
and  the  old  women  and  children  about  us  who  work 
intensely,  above  their  strength,  without  sufficient  food ; 
we  live,  —  enjoying  ourselves  in  luxury,  as  though  there 
were  no  connection  between  that  and  our  life ;  we  do  not 
want  to  see  this,  that,  if  it  were  not  for  our  idle,  luxurious, 
and  debauched  life,  there  would  be  none  of  this  work  above 
their  strength,  and  if  there  were  none  of  that  work,  there 
would  not  be  our  hfe. 

It  seems  to  us  that  sufferings  are  one  thing,  and  our 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  197 

life  another  thing,  and  that  we,  living  as  we  do,  are  as 
innocent  and  pure  as  doves. 

We  read  the  descriptions  of  the  lives  of  the  Eomans 
and  marvel  at  the  inhumanity  of  the  soulless  Luculli, 
who  stuffed  themselves  with  food  and  drink,  while  the 
people  died  of  hunger ;  we  shake  our  heads  and  marvel  at 
the  savagery  of  our  ancestors,  the  serf-owners,  who  intro- 
duced domestic  theatres  and  orchestras,  and  who  appointed 
whole  villages  to  maintain  their  gardens,  and  from  the 
height  of  our  greatness  we  marvel  at  their  inhumanity. 
We  read  the  words  of  Isaiah,  Chapter  V. : 
8.  Woe  unto  them  that  join  house  to  house,  that  lay 
field  to  field,  till  there  be  no  place,  that  they  may  be 
placed  alone  in  the  midst  of  the  earth  ! 

11.  Woe  unto  them  that  rise  up  early  in  the  morning, 
that  they  may  follow  strong  drink ;  that  continue  until 
night,  till  wine  inflame  them ! 

12.  And  the  harp  and  the  viol,  the  tabret  and  pipe,  and 
wine,  are  in  their  feasts :  but  they  regard  not  the  work  of 
the  Lord,  neither  consider  the  operation  of  his  hands. 

18.  Woe  unto  them  that  draw  iniquity  with  cords  of 
vanity,  and  sin  as  it  were  with  a  cart  rope : 

20.  Woe  unto  them  that  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil ; 
that  put  darkness  for  light,  and  light  for  darkness ;  that 
put  bitter  for  sweet,  and  sweet  for  bitter ! 

21.  Woe  unto  them  that  are  wise  in  their  own  eyes, 
and  prudent  in  their  own  sight! 

22.  Woe  unto  them  that  are  mighty  to  drink  wine,  and 
men  of  strength  to  mingle  strong  drink : 

23.  Which  justify  the  wicked  for  reward,  and  take 
away  the  righteousness  of  the  righteous  from  him ! 

We  read  in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  Chapter  III,  10  : 
And   now  also   the  axe  is  laid  unto  the  root  of  the 

treeg :  therefore  every  tree  which  bringeth  not  forth  good 

fruit  is  hewn  down,  and  cast  into  the  fire. 

And  we  are  absolutely  convinced  that  we  are  the  good 


198  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

tree  which  brings  forth  fruit,  and  that  these  words  are  not 
said  to  us,  but  to  somebody  else,  to  some  bad  people. 
We  read  the  words  of  Isaiah,  Chapter  VI. : 

10.  Make  the  heart  of  this  people  fat,  and  make 
their  ears  heavy,  and  shut  their  eyes ;  lest  they  see 
with  their  eyes,  and  hear  with  their  ears,  and  under- 
stand with  their  heart,  and  convert,  and  be  healed. 

11.  Then  said  I,  Lord,  how  long?  And  he  answered, 
Until  the  cities  be  wasted  without  inhabitant,  and  the 
houses  without  man,  and  the  land  be  utterly  desolate. 

We  read  this,  and  are  absolutely  convinced  that  this 
remarkable  work  was  not  done  to  us,  but  to  some  other 
people.  The  reason  why  we  do  not  see  it,  is  because 
this  remarkable  work  has  been  done  to  us:  we  do  not 
hear,  nor  see,  nor  comprehend  with  our  hearts.  How  did 
this  happen  ? 


XXVI. 

How  can  a  man  who  considers  himself,  I  shall  not 
say  a  Christian,  nor  even  a  cultured  or  humane  man,  but 
simply  a  man  who  is  not  completely  deprived  of  reason 
and  of  conscience,  live  in  such  a  way  that,  without  taking 
part  in  the  struggle  for  the  life  of  all  humanity,  he  only 
swallows  the  labours  of  the  men  who  are  struggling  for 
life,  and  by  his  demands  increases  the  labour  of  those  who 
struggle  and  of  those  who  perish  in  this  struggle  ?  Our 
so-called  Christian  and  cultured  world  is  full  of  such 
people.  Not  only  is  our  world  full  of  such  men,  but 
the  ideal  of  the  men  of  our  Christian  cultured  world  is 
the  acquisition  of  the  greatest  possible  possessions,  that 
is,  of  the  possibility  of  wealth  which  gives  comfort  and 
idleness,  that  is,  a  liberation  from  the  struggle  for  hfe, 
and  the  greatest  possible  exploitation  of  the  labour  of 
one's  brothers,  who  are  perishing  in  this  struggle.  How 
could  people  have  fallen  into  such  a  remarkable  delusion  ? 

How  could  they  have  reached  such  a  point  as  not  to 
see,  to  hear,  and  to  comprehend  with  their  hearts  what 
is  so  clear,  so  obvious,  and  so  indisputable  ? 

We  need  but  stop  for  a  moment  and  think,  in  order  to 
be  frightened  at  that  remarkable  contradiction  between 
our  life  and  what  we  profess,  we,  I  do  not  say  the  Chris- 
tians, but  the  humane  and  cultured  people. 

I  do  not  know  whether  that  God,  or  that  law  of  Nature, 
by  which  the  world  and  people  exist,  is  good  or  bad ;  but 
the  position  of  men  in  the  world,  from  the  time  we  know- 
it,  is  such  that  naked  men,  without  wool  on  their  bodies, 
without  holes  in  which  to  hide  themselves,  without  food 

199 


200  WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO   THEN? 

which  they  may  find  in  the  fields,  like  Robinson  on  his 
island,  are  all  put  to  the  necessity  of  struggling  with 
Nature  constantly  and  without  cessation  in  order  to  cover 
their  bodies,  make  clothes  for  themselves,  defend  them- 
selves, put  a  roof  over  their  heads,  and  work  for  their 
food,  with  which  two  or  three  times  a  day  to  still  their 
hunger  and  the  hunger  of  their  children  and  old  men  who 
cannot  work. 

Wherever,  at  whatever  time,  and  in  whatever  numbers 
we  may  observe  the  life  of  people,  whether  in  Europe,  in 
China,  in  America,  or  in  Russia,  whether  we  shall  view 
all  humanity,  or  a  small  part  of  it ;  whether  in  ancient 
times,  in  the  nomad  state,  or  in  our  time,  with  steam 
motors,  sewing-machines,  electric  light,  and  perfected 
agriculture,  we  shall  see  one  and  the  same  thing,  —  that 
people,  working  constantly  and  intensely,  are  not  able  to 
acquire  food,  protection,  and  clothing  for  themselves  and 
for  their  little  ones  and  their  old  men,  and  that  a  con- 
siderable part  of  men  is  now  perishing,  as  it  perished 
before,  from  a  want  of  the  means  of  life  and  from  their 
excessive  labour  to  obtain  them. 

No  matter  where  we  may  Hve,  —  if  we  draw  about  us 
a  circle  of  one  hundred  thousand,  or  of  one  thousand,  or 
of  ten  versts,  or  of  one  verst,  and  look  at  the  lives  of  those 
whom  this  circle  takes  in,  —  we  shall  see  in  this  circle : 
children  born  before  their  time,  old  men  and  women,  sick 
lying-in  women,  and  weak  persons,  who  have  not  enough 
food  and  rest  to  be  able  to  live  and  so  die  before  their 
time ;  we  shall  see  people  who  m  the  full  strength  of 
their  growth  are  killed  outright  by  perilous  and  harmful 
work. 

Ever  since  the  world  has  existed,  we  see  men  with 
terrible  tension,  privations,  and  sufferings  struggling  with 
their  common  want,  unable  to  vanquish  it.  We  know 
besides  that  each  of  us,  no  matter  where  he  may  live  and 
how  he   may  live,  every  day,  every  hour  involuntarily 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  201 

absorbs  for  himself  part  of  the  labours  which  are  worked 
out  by  humanity.  No  matter  where  and  how  he  may- 
live,  the  house  and  the  roof  have  not  grown  over  him  of 
their  own  accord.  The  wood  did  not  walk  into  his  stove, 
nor  did  the  water  come,  nor  did  the  baked  bread,  the 
dinner,  the  clothes,  the  footgear  fall  down  from  the  sky : 
all  that  was  done  for  him  not  only  by  the  men  of  the 
past,  but  is  being  also  done  by  the  men  of  the  present, 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  whom  are  wasting  away  and 
dying  in  vain  endeavours  to  earn  for  themselves  and  for 
their  children  the  necessary  roof,  food,  and  clothing, — 
the  means  for  saving  themselves  and  their  children  from 
sufferings  and  premature  death.  All  men  struggle  with 
want.  They  struggle  with  so  much  tension  that  every 
moment  their  like,  their  fathers,  mothers,  children,  are 
perishing  all  around  them. 

People  are  in  this  world  as  in  a  sea-washed  ship  with 
a  small  supply  of  food :  all  are  placed  by  God,  or  by 
Nature,  in  such  a  situation  that  they  are  compelled,  while 
economizing  on  their  food,  constantly  to  struggle  against 
want.  Every  stoppage  of  each  of  us  ia  this  labour,  every 
absorption  of  the  labours  of  others,  which  is  useless  for 
the  common  good,  is  ruinous  for  ourselves  and  for  our 
kind. 

How,  then,  does  it  happen  that  the  majority  of  the 
cultured  people  of  our  time,  though  doing  no  work,  calmly 
absorb  other  men's  labours,  which  are  necessary  for  life, 
and  regard  such  a  life  as  most  natural  and  rational  ? 

In  order  that  men  may  free  themselves  of  the  labour 
which  is  proper  and  natural  to  all,  may  transfer  it  to 
others,  and  with  all  that  not  consider  themselves  traitors 
and  thieves,  two  suppositions  only  are  possible:  first, 
that  we,  the  men  who  do  not  take  part  in  the  general 
labour,  are  beings  distinct  from  the  labouring  men  and 
have  a  special  purpose  in  society,  like  the  drones  or  queen 
bees,  which  have  a  different  purpose  than  the  working 


202  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

bees ;  and  second,  that  the  work  which  we,  the  men  who 
are  freed  from  the  struggle  for  life,  are  doing  for  the 
other  men  is  so  useful  for  all  men  that  it  certainly  redeems 
the  harm  which  we  do  to  other  people  by  making  their 
situation  harder. 

In  former  days  people  who  exploited  the  labours  of 
others  asserted  that,  in  the  first  place,  they  were  a  special 
breed,  and,  in  the  second,  were  specially  designated  by 
God  to  care  for  the  good  of  individual  men,  that  is,  to 
govern  them  and  teach  them,  and  so  they  assured  others 
and  frequently  believed  themselves  that  the  work  which 
they  were  doing  was  more  important  and  more  necessary 
for  the  people  than  the  labours  which  they  exploited. 
And  so  long  as  there  was  no  doubt  as  to  the  immediate 
interference  of  the  Divinity  in  human  affairs  and  in  the 
distinction  of  races,  this  justification  was  sufficient.  But 
with  Christianity  and  the  consequent  consciousness  of 
the  equality  and  unity  of  all  men,  this  justification  could 
not  be  advanced  in  its  older  form.  It  was  impossible  to 
assert  that  men  are  born  of  different  breeds  and  distinctions 
and  with  different  destinies,  and  the  old  justification, 
though  supported  by  some  people,  has  slowly  been  abol- 
ished and  hardly  exists  now. 

The  justification  of  the  distinctness  of  the  human 
breeds  was  destroyed ;  but  the  fact  itself  of  the  liberation 
of  self  from  labour  and  of  the  exploitation  of  the  labour 
of  others  has  remained  the  same  for  those  who  have  the 
power  to  do  so,  and  for  the  existing  fact  they  have  always 
invented  new  justifications,  with  which,  even  without  the 
acknowledgment  of  the  distinctness  of  the  breeds  of  men, 
the  Hberation  of  self  from  work,  as  practised  by  those 
who  could  do  so,  might  appear  just.  They  have  invented 
very  many  such  justifications.  However  strange  it  may 
appear,  the  chief  activity  of  what  at  a  given  time  was 
called  science,  of  what  formed  the  ruling  tendency  of 
science,  has  been  and  even  now  continues  to  consist  in 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  203 

the  discovery  of  such  justifications.  This  has  heen  the 
aim  of  the  activity  of  the  theological  sciences ;  this  has 
heen  the  aim  of  the  juridical  sciences ;  this  has  been  the 
aim  of  the  so-called  philosophy,  and  this  has  become  of 
late  (however  strange  it  may  appear  to  us  contemporaries, 
who  make  use  of  this  justificatiou)  the  aim  of  the  activity 
of  the  contemporary  experimental  science. 

All  the  theological  finesses,  which  try  to  prove  that  a 
given  church  is  the  one  true  successor  of  Christ,  and 
so  has  full  and-  infinite  power  over  the  souls  and  even 
the  bodies  of  men,  has  this  aim  for  the  chief  motive  of  its 
activity. 

All  the  juridical  sciences,  the  political,  the  criminal,  the 
civil,  the  international  laws,  have  this  one  purpose ;  the 
majority  of  the  philosophical  theories,  especially  Hegel's 
theory,  which  has  been  reigning  for  so  long  a  time,  with 
its  thesis  of  the  rationahty  of  everything  which  exists, 
and  that  the  state  is  a  necessary  form  of  the  perfection  of 
personality,  have  the  same  purpose. 

A  very  poor  English  publicist,  whose  works  have  all 
been  forgotten  and  acknowledged  to  be  the  most  insignifi- 
cant of  the  insignificant,  writes  a  treatise  on  population,  in 
which  he  invents  a  law  about  the  increase  of  the  pop- 
ulation which  is  out  of  proportion  with  the  means  of 
existence.  This  imaginary  law  the  writer  decks  out 
mathematically  with  baseless  formulas  and  lets  out  into 
the  world.  To  judge  from  the  frivolity  and  vapidity  of 
this  work,  one  would  suppose  that  it  would  not  attract 
anybody's  attention  and  would  be  forgotten,  like  all  the 
subsequent  writings  of  this  author ;  but  something  quite 
different  takes  place.  The  publicist  who  has  written  this 
work  at  once  becomes  a  learned  authority  and  is  kept  on 
this  height  for  almost  half  a  century.  Malthus  !  Malthus's 
theory,  —  the  law  of  the  increase  of  the  population  in 
a  geometric,  and  of  the  means  of  existence  in  an  arith- 
metical proportion,  and  the  natural  and  sensible  means 


204  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

for  limiting  the  population,  all  that  became  scientific, 
unquestionable  truths,  which  were  not  verified  and  were 
used  as  axioms,  for  the  purpose  of  building  further  deduc- 
tions upon  them.  Thus  acted  learned,  cultured  men;  but 
among  the  masses  of  idle  men  there  was  expressed  a 
respectful  confidence  in  the  newly  discovered  great  laws 
of  Malthus. 

Why  did  that  happen  ?  One  would  think  that  those 
were  scientific  deductions  which  had  nothing  in  common 
with  the  instincts  of  the  crowd. 

But  this  can  only  appear  so  to  him  who  believes  that 
science  is  something  original,  like  the  church,  which  is  not 
subject  to  errors,  and  not  simply  the  inventions  of  feeble, 
erring  men,  who  only  for  importance'  sake  substitute 
the  word  "  science "  in  the  place  of  men's  thoughts  and 
words. 

It  was  sufficient  to  make  practical  deductions  from 
Malthus's  theory,  in  order  to  see  that  this  theory  was 
most  human,  with  most  definite  aims. 

The  deductions  which  resulted  directly  from  this 
theory  were  as  follows:  the  wretched  condition  of  the 
labouring  people  is  not  due  to  the  cruelty,  egotism,  and 
ignorance  of  the  rich  and  of  those  in  power,  but  it  is  so 
in  consequence  of  an  unchangeable  law,  which  is  inde- 
pendent of  men,  and  if  any  one  is  to  blame  for  it,  it 
is  the  starving  working  men  themselves:  why  are  these 
fools  born,  if  they  know  that  they  will  have  nothing  to 
eat  ?  And  so  the  rich  and  the  classes  in  power  are  not 
to  blame  for  anything,  and  may  continue  to  live  as 
before. 

And  this  deduction,  so  valuable  to  the  crowd  of  idle 
men,  had,  this  effect,  that  all  the  scientists  overlooked  the 
baselessness,  irregularity,  and  complete  arbitrariness  of 
the  deductions,  and  the  crowd  of  the  learned,  that  is,  idle 
men,  knowing  instinctively  to  what  these  deductions 
would  lead,  enthusiastically  hailed  this  theory,  imposed 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  205 

upon  it  the  stamp  of  truth,  that  is,  of  science,  and  held 
on  to  it  for  half  a  century. 

Kant's  positive  philosophy  and  the  resulting  doctrine 
about  humanity  being  an  organism,  —  Darwin's  doc- 
trine of  the  law  of  the  struggle  for  existence,  which  is 
supposed  to  govern  life,  and  of  the  consequent  distiQction 
of  the  human  races,  —  the  now  favourite  anthropology, 
biology,  and  sociology,  have  the  same  purpose.  All  these 
have  become  favourite  sciences,  because  they  all  serve  for 
the  justification  of  the  existing  self-liberation  of  one  set  of 
men  from  the  human  obligation  of  labour,  and  of  their 
absorption  of  the  labour  of  others. 

All  these  theories,  as  is  always  the  case,  are  worked 
out  in  the  mysterious  sanctuaries  of  the  high  priests  and 
are  in  indefinite,  obscure  expressions  disseminated  among 
the  masses,  which  accept  them.  As  in  antiquity  all  the 
theological  intricacies,  the  justifications  of  ecclesiastic  and 
political  violence,  remained  a  special  knowledge  of  the 
priests,  while  among  the  masses  there  were  current 
the  ready  deductions,  taken  on  faith,  that  the  power 
of  the  kings,  the  clergy,  and  the  nobility  was  sacred; 
even  so  later  the  philosophical  and  juridical  intricacies  of 
the  so-called  science  were  the  possession  of  the  priests 
of  this  science,  while  among  the  masses  were  current 
the  deductions,  taken  on  faith,  that  the  structure  of 
society  has  to  be  such  as  it  is,  and  cannot  be  other- 
wise. 

Even  so  now  the  laws  of  life  and  of  the  evolution  of 
the  organisms  are  analyzed  only  in  the  sanctuaries  of  the 
priests ;  but  among  the  masses  are  current  the  deductions, 
taken  on  faith,  that  the  division  of  labour  is  a  law  which 
is  confirmed  by  science,  and  that  so  it  must  be :  that  some 
should  die  from  starvation,  and  work,  while  others  must 
eternally  be  idle,  and  that  this  perdition  of  some  and 
idleness  of  others  are  an  unquestionable  law  of  humanity, 
to  which  we  must  submit. 


206       WHAT  SHALL  WE  DO  THEN  ? 

The  current  justification  of  this  idleness  among  the 
mass  of  all  so-called  cultured  people,  with  their  various 
activities,  from  the  railroad  man  to  the  writer  and  artist, 
is  now  as  follows : 

We,  who  have  freed  ourselves  from  the  universal 
human  obligation  of  participating  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  serve  progress,  and  so  benefit  the  whole  society 
of  men,  thus  redeeming  the  whole  harm  which  is  done  to 
the  same  people  by  exploiting  their  labour. 

This  reflection  seems  to  the  men  of  our  time  quite  dis- 
similar to  those  reflections  by  which  the  former  leisure 
classes  used  to  justify  themselves ;  just  as  the  reflection 
of  the  Roman  emperors  and  citizens  as  to  this,  that  with- 
out them  the  cultured  world  would  perish,  seemed  to 
them  quite  apart  from  the  reflection  of  the  Egyptians  and 
the  Persians,  and  just  as  a  similar  reflection  of  the  mediae- 
val knights  and  clergy  seemed  to  them  quite  distinct  from 
the  reflection  of  the  Romans. 

But  that  only  seems  so.  It  is  enough  to  enter  into  the 
comprehension  of  the  essence  of  the  justification  of  our 
time,  in  order  to  become  convinced  that  there  is  nothing 
new  in  it. 

It  is  only  a  little  differently  clothed,  but  it  is  the  same, 
being  based  on  the  same.  Every  justification  of  a  man 
who,  without  working,  absorbs  the  labour  of  others  —  the 
justification  of  Pharaoh  and  the  priests,  of  the  Roman  and 
mediaeval  emperors  and  their  citizens,  the  knights,  priests, 
and  the  clergy  —  is  always  composed  of  two  propositions : 
(1)  we  take  the  labour  of  the  rabble  because  we  are  spe- 
cial people,  predetermined  by  God  to  govern  the  rabble 
and  to  teach  them  the  divine  truths;  (2)  the  people  of 
the  masses  cannot  be  the  judges  of  the  measure  of  the 
labours  which  we  take  from  them  for  the  good  which  we 
do  them,  because  the  Pharisees  said  long  ago  (John  vii. 
49),  This  people  who  knoweth  not  the  law  are  cursed. 
The  people  do  not  understand  wherein  their  good  Hes,  and 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  207 

SO  they  cannot  be  the  judges  of  the  benefit  conferred  on 
them. 

The  justification  of  our  time,  in  spite  of  its  seeming 
peculiarity,  is  by  its  essence  composed  of  the  same  two 
propositions:  (1)  we,  the  special  people,  the  cultured 
people,  are  serving  progress  and  civilization,  and  so 
confer  a  great  benefit  on  the  masses ;  (2)  the  uneducated 
masses  do  not  understand  the  benefit  which  we  are  con- 
ferring upon  them,  and  so  cannot  be  the  judges  of  it. 

We  free  ourselves  from  labour,  make  use  of  the  labour 
of  others,  and  thus  burden  the  condition  of  our  brothers, 
and  we  affirm  that  in  place  of  the  labour  we  confer  upon 
them  a  great  benefit,  of  which  they  cannot  be  the  judges. 

Is  it  not  the  same  ?  The  only  difference  is  this,  that 
formerly  it  was  the  Eoman  citizens,  the  priests,  the 
knights,  the  nobility,  that  had  the  right  to  other  people's 
labour ;  now  it  is  only  the  caste  of  people  who  call  them- 
selves cultured.  The  lie  is  the  same,  for  the  proposition 
of  the  men  who  justify  themselves  is  equally  false.  The 
lie  consists  in  this,  that  before  reflecting  on  the  benefit 
conferred  on  the  people  by  the  men  who  are  freed  from 
labour,  certain  people,  the  Pharaohs,  the  priests,  or  we, 
the  cultured  men,  put  ourselves  in  this  position  and 
maintain  it,  and  only  then  invent  a  justification  for  it. 

This  condition  of  violence,  which  one  set  of  men  exerts 
upon  others,  as  before,  so  even  now  serves  as  a  foundation 
for  everything. 

The  difference  between  our  justification  and  the  most 
ancient  one  is  only  this,  that  it  is  more  fallacious  and 
less  substantial  than  the  former. 

The  ancient  emperors  and  the  Popes  could,  if  they 
themselves  and  the  people  believed  in  their  divine  calling, 
explain  simply  why  they  were  those  people  who  should 
make  use  of  the  labours  of  others:  they  said  that  they 
were  destined  for  it  by  God,  and  that  God  had  also  pre- 
scribed  to   them  to  transmit  to  the  people  the  divine 


208  WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN? 

truths  which  were  revealed  to  them,  and  to  govern  the 
people. 

But  the  cultured  people  of  our  time,  who  do  not  work 
with  their  hands,  by  recognizing  the  equality  of  men,  can 
no  longer  explain  why  they  and  their  children  (for  educa- 
tion is  obtained  only  by  means  of  money, —  of  power) 
are  those  chosen  fortunate  people  who  are  called  to  con- 
fer a  certain  light  benefit,  and  not  other  people  among  the 
milHons  who  perish  by  the  hundred  and  the  thousand, 
while  supporting  the  possibility  of  their  culture. 

Their  only  justification  is  this,  that  they  —  the  men 
of  the  present  time,  in  place  of  the  evil  which  they  do  to 
the  people  by  freeing  themselves  from  labour  and  absorb- 
ing theirs,  confer  on  the  people  a  benefit  which  is  incom- 
prehensible to  them,  and  which  redeems  all  the  harm  that 
is  done  to  them. 


XXVIL 

The  proposition  by  which  men  who  have  liberated 
themselves  from  labour  justify  their  liberation,  will  in 
its  simplest  and  at  the  same  time  its  most  precise  ex- 
pression be  like  this:  we,  the  people  who  are  in  a 
position,  by  having  freed  ourselves  from  labour,  to  make 
use  through  violence  of  the  labour  of  other  men,  in  con- 
sequence of  this  position  of  ours  confer  a  benefit  on  them, 
those  other  people;  or,  in  other  words:  certain  people, 
in  return  for  the  palpable  and  comprehensible  harm 
which  they  do  to  others  in  forcibly  making  use  of 
their  labours  and  thus  increasing  the  difficulty  of  their 
struggle  with  Nature,  confer  upon  them  a  benefit,  which 
is  impalpable  and  incomprehensible  to  them.  This  prop- 
osition is  very  strange ;  but  the  people  of  former  times 
and  of  the  present,  who  sit  on  the  necks  of  the  working 
people,  believe  in  it  and  ease  their  consciences  with  it. 

Let  us  see  in  what  manner  this  proposition  is  in  our 
day  justified  among  the  various  classes  who  have  eman- 
cipated themselves  from  labour. 

I  serve  people  by  my  political  or  ecclesiastic  activity, 
as  a  king,  a  minister  of  state,  a  bishop;  I  serve  people 
by  my  commercial  or  industrial  labour ;  I  serve  people  by 
my  scientific  or  artistic  activity.  We  are  all  with  our 
activity  as  indispensable  to  the  masses  as  they  are  in- 
dispensable to  us. 

Thus  say  the  various  men  of  our  time,  who  have 
emancipated  themselves  from  labour. 

Let  us  successively  analyze  the  bases  on  which  they 
assert  the  usefulness  of  their  activities. 

209 


210  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

There  can  be  but  two  signs  of  the  usefulness  of  one 
man's  activity  for  another :  the  external  one,  —  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  usefulness  of  the  activity  by  him  who 
is  benefited,  and  the  internal  one,  —  the  desire  of  be- 
ing useful  to  another,  which  lies  at  the  base  of  the 
activity  of  him  who  confers  the  benefit. 

The  men  of  the  state  (I  include  among  this  number 
the  ecclesiastics  who  are  established  by  the  government) 
are  useful  to  those  men  whom  they  govern. 

An  emperor,  king,  president  of  a  republic,  prime  minis- 
ter, minister  of  justice,  minister  of  war,  of  education,  a 
bishop,  and  all  their  subordinates,  who  serve  the  state, 
live,  by  having  freed  themselves  from  the  struggle  of 
humanity  for  life  and  by  imposing  the  whole  burden 
of  the  struggle  on  the  other  people,  on  the  ground  that 
their  activity  redeems  them. 

Let  us  apply  the  first  sign :  is  the  benefit  conferred  by 
this  activity  recognized  by  those  labouring  people  upon 
whom  the  activity  of  the  men  of  state  is  directly 
exerted  ? 

Yes,  it  is  :  the  majority  of  men  regard  the  political 
activity  as  indispensable  to  themselves,  —  the  majority 
recognize  the  usefulness  of  this  activity  in  principle ;  but 
in  all  its  known  manifestations,  in  all  the  known  special 
cases,  every  one  of  the  institutions  and  of  the  actions  of 
this  activity  meets,  in  the  midst  of  those  men  for  whose 
benefit  it  is  exercised,  not  only  a  denial  of  a  benefit  con- 
ferred, but  also  the  assertion  that  this  activity  is  harmful 
and  disastrous. 

There  is  no  political  and  no  social  activity  which  by 
many  men  is  not  considered  harmful :  the  courts,  banks. 
County  Councils,  township  offices,  police,  clergy,  every 
political  activity  from  that  of  the  highest  power  down  to 
that  of  the  rural  officer  and  policeman,  from  that  of  the 
bishop  to  that  of  the  sexton,  is  by  one  part  of  men  con- 
sidered useful,  and  by  the  other  harmful     And  this  does 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  211 

not  take  place  in  Eussia  alone,  but  in  the  whole  world 
also,  in  France,  and  in  America. 

The  whole  activity  of  the  Kepublican  party  is  con- 
sidered harmful  by  the  Eadical  party,  and  vice  versa,  the 
whole  activity  of  the  Eadical  party,  if  the  power  is  in  its 
hands,  is  considered  harmful  by  the  Eepublican  party  and 
by  others. 

And  not  only  is  the  whole  activity  of  the  men  of  state 
never  considered  useful  by  all  men,  —  this  activity  has 
also  this  property,  that  it  has  always  to  be  exerted  by  the 
use  of  violence,  and  that,  to  obtain  this  benefit,  there  are 
necessary  murders,  capital  punishments,  jails,  compulsory 
taxes,  and  so  forth. 

And  so  it  turns  out  that  the  usefulness  of  the  political 
activity  is  not  recognized  by  all  men  and  is  always  denied 
by  one  part  of  men,  and  that  moreover  this  usefulness  has 
the  property  of  always  finding  its  expression  in  violence. 
And  so  the  usefulness  of  the  political  activity  cannot  be 
confirmed  by  the  fact  that  it  is  recognized  by  those  men 
for  whom  it  is  intended. 

Let  us  apply  the  second  sign.  Let  us  ask  the  men  of 
state,  from  the  king  down  to  the  policeman,  from  the 
president  down  to  the  secretary,  and  from  the  patriarch 
down  to  the  sexton,  inviting  their  sincere  answer,  whether 
they,  in  holding  their  offices,  have  in  view  the  benefit 
which  they  wish  to  confer  on  people,  or  whether  they 
have  other  aims ;  whether,  in  their  desire  to  occupy  the 
post  of  king,  president,  minister,  or  rural  oflicer,  of  a  sex- 
ton, or  a  teacher,  they  are  impelled  by  a  striving  for  other  f 
people's  benefit  or  for  their  own  personal  advantage. 

The  answer  of  conscientious  men  will  be  that  their  chief- 
impulse  is  their  personal  advantage. 

And  so  it  turns  out  that  one  class  of  men,  which  ex- 
ploits the  labours  of  others,  who  perish  in  this  labour, 
is  redeeming  this  unquestionable  harm  with  an  activity 
which  by  many  people  is  always  regarded  as  harmful,  and 


212  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

not  useful,  which  cannot  be  freely  received  by  the  people, 
but  must  always  be  enforced  by  violence,  and  the  aim 
of  which  is  not  the  benefit  of  others,  but  the  personal 
advantage  of  those  men  who  exert  it. 

What,  then,  is  confirmed  by  the  assumption  that  the 
poHtical  activity  is  useful  to  men? 

Only  this,  that  those  men  who  exert  it  are  firmly  con- 
vinced that  it  is  useful,  and  that  this  activity  has  always 
existed ;  but  there  have  always  existed,  not  only  ex- 
tremely useless,  but  even  harmful  institutions,  such  as 
slavery,  prostitution,  and  wars.  Industrialists  —  includ- 
ing in  this  term  merchants,  manufacturers,  railroad  men, 
bankers,  and  agriculturists  —  beheve  in  this,  that  they 
confer  a  benefit  which  unquestionably  redeems  the  harm 
done  by  them. 

On  what  grounds  do  they  think  so  ? 

In  reply  to  the  question  as  to  who  and  what  people 
recognize  the  usefulness  of  their  activity,  the  men  of  state, 
with  the  inclusion  of  the  clericals,  could  point  to  thou- 
sands and  millions  of  working  people,  who  in  principle 
recognize  the  usefulness  of  the  political  and  clerical 
activity ;  but  who  will  be  pointed  out  to  us  by  the  bank- 
ers, manufacturers  of  whiskey,  velvet,  bronzes,  mirrors, 
to  say  nothing  of  cannon  ?  Who  will  be  pointed  out 
by  the  merchants,  agriculturists,  when  we  ask  these 
whether  the  benefit  which  they  confer  is  recognized  by 
public  opiuion  ? 

If  some  people  are  found  who  recognize  the  production 
of  cottons,  rails,  beer,  and  similar  articles  as  useful,  there 
wiU  be  found  an  even  greater  number  of  men  who  recog- 
nize the  production  of  these  articles  as  harmful.  The 
activity  of  the  merchants,  who  advance  the  price  of 
articles,  and  of  the  landed  proprietors,  will  not  even  be 
defended  by  any  person.  Besides,  this  activity  is  always 
connected  with  harm  to  the  labourers  and  with  violence, 
which,  though  less  direct  than  the  political  violence,  is  as 


WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  213 

cruel  in  its  consequences,  since  the  industrial  and  com- 
mercial activities  are  all  based  on  the  exploitation  of  want 
in  every  form  :  on  its  exploitation  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
pelling the  labourers  to  do  hard  and  undesirable  work; 
on  the  exploitation  of  the  same  want  for  the  purpose  of 
purchasing  commodities  at  a  low  price  and  selling  articles 
of  necessity  to  the  people  at  the  highest  price;  on  the 
exploitation  of  this  want  for  the  purpose  of  exacting 
interest  on  money.  No  matter  from  what  side  we  may 
view  their  activity,  we  shall  see  that  the  benefit  exerted 
by  the  industrialists  is  not  recognized  by  those  for  whom 
it  is  exerted,  either  in  principle,  or  in  special  cases,  and  in 
general  is  directly  recognized  as  harmful. 

But  if  we  apply  the  second  sign,  and  ask  what  the 
impelHng  cause  of  the  activity  of  the  industrialists  is,  we 
shall  receive  an  even  more  definite  answer  than  in  respect 
to  the  activity  of  the  men  of  state. 

If  a  man  of  state  says  that  in  addition  to  his  personal 
advantage  he  has  in  view  the  common  good,  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  disbelieve  him,  and  each  of  us  knows  such  men, 
but  an  industrialist  by  the  very  essence  of  his  business 
cannot  have  in  view  the  common  good,  and  will  be  con- 
sidered ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  his  fellows  if  in  his  busi- 
ness he  shall  pursue  any  other  aim  than  the  increase  of 
his  wealth  or  its  maintenance. 

Thus  the  labouring  people  do  not  consider  the  activity 
of  the  industrialists  useful  to  themselves. 

This  activity  is  connected  with  violence  against  the 
labourers,  and  the  aim  of  this  activity  is  not  the  benefit 
of  the  working  people,  but  always  personal  advantage, 
and  suddenly  —  strange  to  say  —  these  industrialists  are 
so  convinced  of  the  benefit  which  they  confer  on  people 
by  their  activity  that  in  the  name  of  this  imaginary  benefit 
they  do  undoubted,  obvious  harm  to  these  labourers  by 
emancipating  themselves  from  labour  and  absorbing  the 
labour  of  the  working  classes. 


214  What  shall  we  do  then? 

The  men  of  science  and  of  art  have  freed  themselves 
from  labour  and  have  imposed  this  labour  on  others  and 
live  with  a  calm  conscience,  being  firmly  convinced  of 
this,  that  they  confer  on  others  a  benefit  which  redeems 
all  that. 

On  what  is  their  conviction  based  ? 

We  shall  ask  them,  as  we  asked  the  men  of  state  and 
the  industrialists,  whether  the  labouring  people,  all  of 
them,  or  even  a  majority  of  them,  recognize  the  benefit 
which  art  and  science  confer  upon  them. 

The  answer  will  be  a  very  lamentable  one. 

The  activity  of  the  men  of  state  and  of  the  church  is 
recognized  as  useful  in  principle  by  nearly  everybody,  and 
in  application  by  the  greater  half  of  those  working  people 
upon  whom  it  is  directed ;  the  activity  of  the  industrialists 
is  recognized  by  a  small  number  of  working  people ;  but 
the  activity  of  the  men  of  science  and  of  art  is  not  recog- 
nized as  useful  by  anybody  among  the  labouring  people. 
The  usefulness  of  this  activity  is  recognized  only  by  those 
who  exert  it  or  wish  to  exert  it.  The  working  people  — 
those  who  carry  on  their  shoulders  the  whole  labour  of 
life  and  feed  and  clothe  the  men  of  science  and  of  art  — 
cannot  recognize  the  activity  of  these  men  as  useful  for 
themselves,  because  they  cannot  even  have  any  conception 
about  this  activity  which  is  so  useful  to  them.  This 
activity  presents  itself  to  the  labouring  people  as  useless 
and  even  corrupting. 

Thus  the  labouring  people  look  without  exception  upon 
the  universities,  libraries,  conservatories,  picture-galleries, 
museums,  and  theatres,  which  are  built  at  their  expense. 
A  labouring  man  looks  so  definitely  upon  this  activity  as 
harmful  that  he  does  not  send  his  children  to  school,  and, 
to  compel  the  masses  to  take  part  in  this  activity,  it 
became  necessary  everywhere  to  introduce  the  law  of 
compulsory  school  attendance.  A  labouring  man  always 
looks  inimically  upon  this  activity,  and  will  stop  looking 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  215 

upon  it  in  such  a  way  only  when  he  himself  ceases  to 
be  a  labourer  and,  by  means  of  his  earnings  and  later 
by  the  means  of  the  so-called  culture,  passes  from 
the  labouring  class  into  that  of  men  who  live  by 
sitting  on  the  shoulders  of  others.  And  although  the 
activity  of  the  men  of  sciences  and  of  arts  is  not  recog- 
nized and  cannot  be  recognized  by  any  one  among  the 
labouring  people,  the  labourers  are  none  the  less  compelled 
to  bring  sacrifices  in  favour  of  this  activity. 

A  man  of  state  sends  another  directly  to  the  guillotine 
or  to  jail ;  an  industrialist,  making  use  of  the  labours  of 
another,  takes  the  last  away  from  him,  leaving  him  the 
choice  between  starvation  and  pernicious  work;  but  a 
man  of  science  or  of  art  apparently  does  not  compel,  but 
only  ofifers  his  wares  to  those  who  want  to  take  them; 
but,  in  order  to  produce  his  wares,  which  are  undesirable 
to  the  working  people,  he  takes  from  them  by  force, 
through  the  men  of  state,  the  greater  part  of  their  labour 
for  buildings  and  their  maintenance,  for  academies,  univer- 
sities, gymnasia,  schools,  museums,  libraries,  conservatories, 
and  for  the  support  of  the  men  of  science  and  of  art. 

And  if  we  ask  the  men  of  science  and  of  art  about  the 
aim  which  they  pursue  in  their  activities,  we  get  the  most 
remarkable  answers.  A  man  of  state  could  have  answered 
that  his  aim  is  the  common  good,  and  there  is  in  this  a 
grain  of  truth  which  is  confirmed  by  public  opinion.  But 
the  answer  of  the  men  of  science  and  of  art  at  once 
startles  us  by  its  groundlessness  and  impudence. 

The  men  of  the  sciences  and  of  the  arts  say,  without 
adducing  any  proof  for  it,  just  as  the  priests  used  to  say 
in  antiquity,  that  their  activity  is  most  important  and 
most  necessary  for  all  men,  and  that  without  this  activity 
all  humanity  would  perish.  They  affirm  that  it  is  so, 
although  no  man  but  they  themselves  understands  or 
recognizes  their  activity,  and  although  true  science  and 
true  art,  by  their  own  definition,  ought  to  have  no  aim 


216  WHAT   SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

of  usefulness.  The  men  of  science  and  of  art  abandon 
themselves  to  their  favourite  occupation,  without  caring 
what  benefit  people  will  derive  from  it,  and  are  always 
convinced  that  they  are  doing  a  most  important  and 
necessary  work  for  humanity ;  so  that,  while  a  sincere 
man  of  state,  in  recognizing  the  fact  that  the  chief  motive 
of  his  activity  is  his  personal  impulses,  tries  as  much  as 
possible  to  be  useful  to  the  labouring  people,  and  the 
industrialist,  in  recognizing  the  selfishness  of  his  activity, 
tries  to  give  it  the  character  of  a  common  good,  the  men 
of  the  arts  and  the  sciences  do  not  even  consider  it 
necessary  to  cloak  themselves  with  a  tendency  for  what 
is  useful :  they  even  deny  the  aim  of  the  useful ;  so  con- 
vinced are  they,  not  of  the  usefulness,  but  of  the  sacred- 
ness,  of  their  occupation. 

And  so  it  turns  out  that  a  third  division  of  men,  who 
have  emancipated  themselves  from  labour  and  have  im- 
posed it  upon  others,  are  busying  themselves  with  subjects 
which  are  completely  incomprehensible  to  the  labouring 
people,  and  which  the  masses  regard  as  trifles  and  fre- 
quently as  harmful  trifles;  and  they  busy  themselves 
with  these  subjects  without  the  least  consideration  of  their 
usefulness  to  men,  but  only  for  their  own  amusement, 
being  for  some  reason  completely  convinced  that  their 
activity  will  always  be  such  that  the  labouring  people 
cannot  live  without  it. 

Men  have  emancipated  themselves  from  labour  for  life 
and  have  unloaded  this  labour  on  people  who  are  perishing 
in  this  labour;  men  exploit  this  labour,  and  affirm  that 
their  occupations,  which  are  incomprehensible  to  all  other 
men  and  are  not  directed  upon  the  usefulness  of  men, 
redeem  all  the  harm  which  they  do  to  men  by  eman- 
cipating themselves  from  the  labour  for  life  and  by 
absorbing  the  labour  of  others. 

To  redeem  that  unquestionable  and  obvious  harm 
which  the  men  of  state  do  to  people  by  their  emancipa- 


WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO   THEN?  217 

tion  from  the  struggle  with  Nature  and  the  exploitation 
of  the  labour  of  others,  they  do  to  people  another  obvious, 
unquestionable  harm,  —  all  kinds  of  violence. 

To  redeem  that  unquestionable  and  obvious  harm 
which  the  industrialists  do  to  people  by  exploiting  their 
labour,  they  strive  to  acquire  for  themselves,  consequently 
to  take  away  from  others,  as  much  wealth  as  possible, 
that  is,  as  much  of  the  labour  of  others  as  possible. 

The  men  of  science  and  of  the  arts,  in  return  for  that 
unquestionable  and  obvious  harm  which  they  do  to  the 
labouring  people,  busy  themselves  with  matters  which  are 
incomprehensible  to  the  labouring  people,  and  which, 
according  to  their  own  assertion,  to  be  real,  must  not 
have  usefulness  in  view,  but  that  toward  which  they 
feel  themselves  drawn.  And  so  all  these  men  are  fully 
convinced  that  their  right  to  exploit  other  people's  labour 
is  unshakable. 

It  would  seem  to  be  obvious  that  all  those  people  who 
have  emancipated  themselves  from  the  labour  of  life  have 
no  grounds  for  this.  But  strange  to  say,  these  people 
believe  firmly  in  their  righteousness  and  live  as  they  do 
with  a  calm  conscience. 

There  must  be  some  foundation,  there  must  be  some 
false  creed,  at  the  basis  of  such  a  terrible  delusion. 


xxvin. 

Indeed,  at  the  basis  of  the  position  in  which  people 
are  who  live  by  the  labour  of  others,  Hes  not  only  a 
belief,  but  a  whole  creed,  and  not  one,  but  three  creeds, 
which  during  the  ages  have  grown  up  by  superposition 
and  have  been  compacted  into  one  monstrous  deception, 
—  humbug,  as  the  English  say,  —  which  conceals  from 
men  their  unrighteousness. 

The  oldest  creed  in  our  world,  which  justified  men's 
defection  from  their  fundamental  duty  of  the  labour  of 
life,  was  the  church-Christian  creed,  according  to  which 
men  are  by  God's  will  differentiated  from  one  another,  as 
the  sun  differs  from  the  moon  and  the  stars,  and  the 
stars  among  themselves ;  some  people  are  commanded  by 
God  to  have  power  over  all  men,  others  over  many, 
others  again  over  a  few,  while  others  are  commanded 
by  God  to  obey. 

This  creed,  though  now  tottering  on  its  foundations, 
still  continues  to  act  on  people  from  inertia,  so  that  many, 
who  do  not  recognize  the  doctrine  itself,  none  the  less  are 
guided  by  it. 

The  second  justificatory  creed  of  our  world  is  the  one 
which  I  cannot  call  otherwise  than  the  poHtico-philosoph- 
ical  creed.  According  to  this  creed,  which  was  perfectly 
expressed  in  Hegel,  everything  which  exists  is  rational, 
and  the  order  of  things  which  was  estabhshed  and  is 
maintained  by  people  was  not  estabhshed  and  is  not  main- 
tained by  people  but  is  the  one  possible  form  of  the 
manifestation  of  the  spirit,  or  in  general  of  the  hfe  of 
humanity.      And   this   creed  is  in  our  time  no  longer 

218 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  219 

shared  by  men  who  guide  public  opinion,  and  maintains 
itself  only  through  inertia. 

The  last,  now  reigning  creed,  the  one  on  which  the 
justification  of  the  leading  men  of  state,  of  industry,  of 
science,  and  of  art  is  based  in  our  day,  is  the  scientific 
creed,  not  in  the  simple  meaning  of  this  word,  which  des- 
ignates knowledge  in  general,  but  in  the  sense  of  one 
special  kind  of  knowledge,  both  as  to  form  and  to  con- 
tents. 

On  this  new  creed,  which  is  called  science,  is  mainly 
based  the  justification  which  in  our  day  conceals  from 
the  idle  people  their  defection  from  their  calling. 

This  new  creed  made  its  appearance  in  Europe  simul- 
taneously with  the  appearance  of  a  large  class  of  rich  and 
idle  people,  who  serve  neither  the  church,  nor  the  state, 
and  who  needed  a  justification  corresponding  to  their 
position. 

Not  very  long  ago,  previous  to  the  French  Eevolution, 
all  the  leisure  people  in  Europe,  to  have  the  right  to  ex- 
ploit the  labours  of  others,  were  compelled  to  have  some 
very  definite  occupations :  they  had  to  serve  the  church, 
the  government,  and  the  army.  The  men  who  served 
the  government  ruled  the  people;  those  who  served  the 
church  taught  them  the  divine  truths ;  those  who  served 
the  army  defended  the  people. 

Only  three  classes,  the  clergy,  the  rulers,  the  mihtary, 
regarded  themselves  as  having  the  right  to  make  use  of 
the  labours  of  the  masses,  and  could  always  bring  forward 
their  service  to  the  people ;  all  the  other  rich  people,  who 
did  not  have  this  justification,  were  despised  and,  feeling 
their  unrighteousness,  were  ashamed  of  their  wealth  and 
idleness. 

But  the  time  came  when  this  class  of  the  rich,  who 
were  subject  neither  to  the  clergy,  nor  to  the  government, 
nor  to  the  army,  multiphed,  thanks  to  the  vices  of  the 
three  estates,  and  became  a  power,  and  these  men  needed 


220  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

a  justification.  And  the  justification  made  its  appear- 
ance. 

Less  than  a  century  passed,  when  all  these  men,  who 
serve  neither  the  government,  nor  the  church,  and  who  take 
no  part  in  these  matters,  not  only  acquired  the  same  rights 
for  the  exploitation  of  the  labours  of  others,  as  the  former 
estates  had  possessed,  and  so  stopped  being  ashamed  of 
their  wealth  and  idleness,  but  also  began  to  consider  their 
position  fully  justified.  There  has  in  our  day  evolved  an 
enormous  number  of  such  men,  and  their  number  is  all 
the  time  growing.  And  what  is  remarkable  is  this,  that 
these  new  men,  the  legality  of  whose  emancipation  from 
labour  was  even  recently  not  recognized,  now  are  the  only 
ones  who  consider  themselves  fully  justified,  and  they  at- 
tack the  three  former  classes,  the  servants  of  the  church, 
of  the  state,  and  of  the  army,  recognizing  their  hberation 
from  labour  as  irregular  and  their  activity  even  as  harmful 

And  what  is  still  more  remarkable  is  this,  that  the 
former  servants  of  the  state,  the  church,  and  the  army  no 
longer  fall  back  on  their  divine  election  or  even  on  the 
philosophical  significance  of  the  state,  which  is  supposed 
to  be  necessary  for  the  manifestation  of  individuahty,  but 
even  throw  down  these  supports,  which  have  held  them 
up  for  so  long  a  time,  and  seek  those  supports  on  which 
stands  the  now  ruling  class,  which  has  discovered  this  new 
justification,  and  at  the  head  of  which  stand  the  learned 
and  the  artists.  If  now  a  man  of  state  occasionally 
through  his  old  reminiscence  defends  his  position  by  say- 
ing that  he  was  destined  for  it  by  God,  or  that  the  state 
is  a  form  of  the  evolution  of  the  individual,  he  does  so 
because  he  has  fallen  behind  the  times,  and  he  feels  him- 
self that  nobody  beheves  him.  In  order  firmly  to  defend 
himself,  he  has  now  to  find,  not  theological  or  philosoph- 
ical, but  new  scientific  supports.  It  is  necessary  to  ad- 
vance the  principle  of  the  nationalities  or  of  organic 
evolution,  —  it  is  necessary  to  keep  on  the  good  side  of 


WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO    THEN?  221 

the  ruling  class,  as  in  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  necessary 
to  keep  on  the  good  side  of  the  clergy,  as  at  the  end  of 
last  century  it  was  necessary  to  keep  on  the  good  side  of 
the  philosophers  (Frederick,  Catherine). 

If  a  rich  man  now  at  times,  from  old  habit,  speaks  of 
the  divine  providence  which  chose  him  to  become  a  rich 
man,  or  of  the  significance  of  aristocracy  for  the  good  of 
the  state,  he  speaks  so  because  he  is  behind  the  times. 
In  order  firmly  to  justify  himself,  he  must  advance  his 
cooperation  with  the  progress  of  civihzation  by  the  per- 
fection of  the  means  of  production,  the  cheapening  of  the 
necessary  commodities,  the  establishment  of  international 
amity.  A  rich  man  must  think  and  speak  in  scientific 
language,  and,  as  formerly  sacrifices  were  brought  to  the 
clergy,  so  now  he  brings  them  to  the  ruling  class,  —  he 
must  publish  periodicals  and  books,  found  galleries,  musical 
societies,  or  a  kindergarten,  or  technical  schools. 

But  the  ruhng  class  is  that  of  the  learned  and  the 
artists  of  a  given  tendency :  they  have  the  complete 
justification  of  their  emancipation  from  labour,  and  on 
their  justification,  as  formerly  on  the  theological  and 
later  on  the  philosophical  justification,  is  now  based  every 
justification,  and  they  now  distribute  to  the  other  classes 
the  diplomas  for  justification. 

The  class  which  now  has  a  full  justification  in  its 
emancipation  from  labour  is  the  class  of  the  men  of 
science,  especially  of  experimental,  positive,  critical,  evolu- 
tionary science,  and  the  class  of  artists  who  work  in  the 
same  direction. 

If  a  learned  man  or  an  artist  from  old  habit  now  speaks 
of  prophecy,  revelation,  or  the  manifestation  of  the  spirit, 
he  does  so  because  he  has  fallen  behind  the  times,  and  he 
does  not  justify  himself :  in  order  to  stand  firmly,  he  must 
in  some  way  articulate  his  activity  with  the  experimental, 
positive,  critical  science,  and  place  this  science  at  the 
foundation  of  his  activity. 


222  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

In  that  case  alone  will  the  science  or  the  art  with 
which  he  busies  himself  be  real,  and  he  himself  in  our 
day  be  able  to  stand  on  imperturbable  foundations,  and 
no  doubt  exist  any  longer  as  to  the  benefit  which  it 
confers  on  humanity. 

On  the  experimental,  critical,  positive  science  is  now 
based  the  justification  of  all  men  who  have  emancipated 
themselves  from  labour. 

The  theological  and  philosophical  justifications  have 
outlived  their  usefulness,  and  they  diffidently  and  bashfully 
make  themselves  known  and  try  to  give  way  to  the  scien- 
tific justifications ;  but  the  scientific  justification  boldly 
overturns  and  destroys  what  is  left  of  the  former  justifica- 
tions, everywhere  takes  their  place,  and,  with  the  con- 
viction of  its  imperturbability,  raises  its  head  high. 

The  theological  justification  said  that  men  according 
to  their  destination  are  called,  some  to  command,  others 
to  obey,  some  to  live  in  abundance,  others  in  want ;  and 
so  he  who  believes  in  the  revelation  of  God  cannot  doubt 
the  legality  of  the  state  of  those  men  who  by  the  will  of 
God  are  called  to  command  and  be  rich. 

The  philosophico-political  justification  said :  "  The  state 
with  all  its  institutions  and  different  classes  of  men  accord- 
ing to  privileges  and  to  property  is  that  historic  form 
which  is  necessary  for  the  regular  manifestation  of  the 
spirit  in  humanity,  and  so  the  position  by  privilege  and 
property,  which  one  occupies  in  the  state  and  in  society, 
must  be  such  for  the  regular  life  of  humanity." 

The  scientific  theory  says :  "  All  that  is  nonsense  and 
superstition ;  one  is  the  fruit  of  the  thought  of  the 
theological  period  of  the  life  of  humanity,  the  other  is  that 
of  the  metaphysical  period.  For  the  study  of  the  laws  of 
the  life  of  human  societies  there  is  only  one  unquestionable 
method,  —  the  method  of  the  positive,  experimental,  crit- 
ical science.  Nothing  but  sociology,  which  is  based  on 
biology,  which  in  its  turn  is  based  on  all  the  other  positive 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  223 

sciences,  can  give  us  the  laws  of  the  life  of  humanity. 
Humanity,  or  the  human  societies,  are  organisms,  all  ready 
or  in  the  act  of  formation  and  subject  to  all  the  laws  of  the 
evolution  of  the  organisms.  One  of  these  chief  laws  is  the 
division  of  the  functions  of  labour  among  the  particles  of 
the  organs.  If  some  people  command  and  others  obey, 
if  some  live  in  abundance  and  others  in  want,  this  takes 
place,  not  by  the  will  of  God,  not  because  the  state  is  a 
form  of  the  manifestation  of  the  individual,  but  because 
in  the  societies,  as  in  the  organisms,  takes  place  the 
division  of  labour  which  is  indispensable  for  the  life  of 
the  whole:  some  men  perform  in  societies  the  muscular 
labour,  while  others  do  the  mental  labour." 

On  this  creed  is  based  the  reigning  justification  of  our 
time. 


XXIX. 

A  NEW  teaching  is  preached  by  Christ  and  is  recorded 
in  the  gospels.  This  teaching  is  persecuted,  and  is  not 
accepted,  and  they  invent  the  history  of  the  fall  of  the 
first  man  and  of  the  first  angel,  and  this  invention  is 
accepted  as  Christ's  teaching.  This  invention  is  insipid, 
has  no  foundation,  but  from  it  inevitably  results  the  con- 
clusion that  a  man  may  live  badly  and  yet  consider  him- 
self justified  by  Christ,  and  this  conclusion  is  so  opportune 
for  those  feeble  men  who  do  not  like  any  moral  labour, 
that  this  invention  is  immediately  accepted  as  a  truth 
and  even  as  a  divine,  revealed  truth,  although  nowhere 
in  what  is  called  revelation  is  there  even  a  hint  concern- 
ing this,  and  the  invention  is  put  at  the  base  of  the 
millennial  labour  of  the  learned  theologians,  who  upon  it 
construct  their  theories. 

The  learned  theologians  break  up  into  sects  and  begin 
to  deny  the  structures  of  one  another,  and  they  begin  to 
feel  that  they  themselves  are  becoming  entangled  and  do 
not  understand  what  they  say ;  but  the  crowd  demands 
of  them  a  confirmation  of  their  favourite  doctrine,  and 
they  pretend  that  they  understand  and  believe  what  they 
say,  and  continue  to  preach.  But  the  time  comes  when 
the  arguments  prove  useless,  the  crowd  looks  into  the 
sanctuaries  of  the  priests,  and  to  its  astonishment  sees,  in 
place  of  the  solemn  and  undoubted  truths  that  the-  theo- 
logical mysteries  seemed  to  it  to  be,  that  there  has  never 
been  there  anything  but  the  grossest  deception,  and 
marvels  at  its  blindness. 

The  same  has  happened  with  philosophy,  not  in  the 
224 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  225 

sense  of  the  wisdom  of  a  Confucius,  a  Socrates,  an  Epic- 
tetus,  but  with  the  professorial  philosophy,  whenever  it 
pandered  to  the  instincts  of  the  idle  rich. 

Not  long  ago  there  reigned  in  the  learned  world  the 
philosophy  of  the  spirit,  according  to  which  it  appeared 
that  everything  which  existed  was  rational,  that  there 
was  neither  bad  nor  good,  and  that  a  man  must  not 
struggle  with  evil,  but  only  manifest  his  spirit,  —  one  in 
military  service,  another  in  a  court,  a  third  on  the  violin. 

There  have  been  many  different  expressions  of  human 
wisdom,  and  these  manifestations  have  been  known  to 
the  men  of  the  nineteenth  century.  They  have  known 
Eousseau,  and  Pasqual,  and  Lessing,  and  Spinoza,  and  all 
the  wisdom  of  antiquity,  but  nobody's  wisdom  has  taken 
possession  of  the  crowd.  It  cannot  even  be  said  that  the 
success  of  Hegel's  philosophy  depended  on  the  harmony 
of  his  theories.  There  have  been  other  harmonious 
theories,  such  as  those  of  Fichte  and  Schopenhauer, 
There  was  but  one  reason  why  this  teaching  for  a  short 
time  became  the  creed  of  the  whole  world ;  the  reason 
was,  like  the  reason  of  the  success  of  the  theory  of  the 
fall  and  redemption  of  man,  that  the  deductions  from  this 
philosophical  theory  pandered  to  the  weaknesses  of  men. 
They  said:  everything  is  rational,  everything  is  good, 
nobody  is  to  blame  for  anything.  And  just  as  the  theo- 
logians did  with  the  theory  of  redemption,  so  the  philoso- 
phers built  their  tower  of  Babel  on  Hegelian  foundations 
(and  even  now  a  few  men  who  are  behind  the  times  are 
sitting  on  it),  and  in  the  same  way  their  tongues  became 
confused,  and  they  felt  that  they  themselves  did  not 
know  what  they  were  saying,  and,  without  carrying  the 
dirt  out^of  their  house,  tried  just  as  carefully  to  maintain 
their  authority  before  the  crowd,  and  the  crowd  asked  as 
much  as  before  for  a  confirmation  of  what  was  opportune 
for  it,  and  believed  that  what  to  it  appeared  obscure  and 
contradictory  was  as  clear  as  day  up  there,  on  the  philo- 


226  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

sophical  heights.  And  again  the  time  came  when  even 
this  theory  was  worn  out,  and  in  its  place  there  appeared 
a  new  theory,  and  the  old  one  became  useless,  and  the 
crowd  peeped  into  the  mysterious  sanctuaries  of  the  priests, 
and  saw  that  there  was  nothing  there,  and  never  had  been 
anything  but  very  obscure  and  senseless  words.  This 
took  place  within  my  memory. 

When  I  began  to  live,  Hegehanism  was  the  foundation 
of  everything :  it  was  in  the  air,  found  its  expression  in 
newspaper  and  periodical  articles,  in  novels,  in  treatises, 
in  art,  in  history,  in  sermons,  in  conversations.  A  man 
who  did  not  know  Hegel  had  no  right  to  speak :  he  who 
wanted  to  know  the  truth  studied  Hegel.  Everything 
leaned  on  him,  and  suddenly  forty  years  have  passed, 
and  nothing  is  left  of  him,  and  there  is  no  mention  even 
made  of  him,  as  though  he  had  never  existed.  And  what 
is  most  remarkable  is  that,  like  pseudo-Christianity,  Hege- 
lianism  fell,  not  because  somebody  overthrew  it,  —  no,  as 
it  was,  so  it  still  is,  —  but  because  it  suddenly  became 
evident  that  the  learned,  cultured  world  had  no  use  for 
either. 

If  we  now  talk  to  a  modern  cultured  man  about  the 
fall  of  the  angel  and  of  Adam,  and  about  the  redemption, 
he  will  not  even  try  to  dispute  and  prove  the  injustice  of 
it,  but  will  ask  in  perplexity:  "What  angel?  Why 
Adam  ?  What  redemption  ?  What  do  I  want  with  it  ? " 
The  same  is  true  of  Hegelianism.  The  modern  man  will 
not  dispute,  but  will  only  marvel.  "  What  spirit  ?  Where 
does  it  come  from  ?  Why  is  it  manifested  ?  What  do  I 
want  with  it  ? " 

"  Yes,"  the  learned  men  of  the  present  will  say,  "  that 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  the  delirium  of  the  theo- 
logical and  of  the  metaphysical  periods  ;  now  we  have 
the  critical,  positive  science,  which  will  not  deceive  us, 
because  it  is  all  based  on  induction  and  experience.  Now 
our  knowledge  is  not  shaky  as  it  used  to  be,  and  only 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  DO  THEK  ?       227 

on  our  path  lies  the  solution  of  all  the  questions  of 
humanity." 

But  it  is  precisely  what  the  theologians  used  to  say, 
and  they  were  certainly  no  fools ;  —  we  know  that  there 
were  among  them  people  of  very  great  intellect;  and 
precisely  the  same,  and  not  with  less  conviction,  and  not 
with  less  recognition  on  the  part  of  the  crowd  of  the  so- 
called  cultured  people,  did  the  Hegelians  say  within  my 
memory.  And  certainly  such  men  as  our  Hertzen,  Stan- 
k^vich,  and  Byelinski  were  no  fools.  Why,  then,  has  this 
remarkable  phenomenon  happened  that  clever  people  have 
with  the  greatest  conviction  preached,  and  the  crowd 
has  with  awe  received,  such  unfounded  and  barren  doc- 
trines ?  There  is  just  one  reason  for  it,  and  it  is  this, 
that  the  doctrines  preached  justified  the  people  in  their 
bad  hves. 

Is  not  the  same  the  reason  of  the  self-confidence  of  the 
men  of  the  positive,  critical,  experimental  science,  and  of 
the  awed  relation  of  the  crowd  to  what  they  preach  ?  At 
first  it  appears  strange  how  the  theory  of  evolution  (like 
the  redemption  in  theology,  it  serves  for  the  majority  as 
a  popular  expression  of  the  whole  new  creed)  can  justify 
people  in  their  unrighteousness,  and  it  seems  that  the 
scientific  theory  has  to  do  with  facts  only,  and  does 
nothing  but  observe  facts. 

But  that  only  seems  so.  Even  so  it  seemed  in  the 
case  of  the  theological  doctrine  that  the  theology  busied 
itself  only  with  dogmas  and  had  no  relation  to  the  life  of 
men :  even  so  it  seemed  in  philosophy :  it  seemed  to  be 
occupied  only  with  its  transcendental  ratiocinations. 

But  that  only  seemed  so.  Even  so  it  seemed  in  the 
case  of  the  Hegehan  doctrine  on  a  large  scale,  and  in 
particular  in  the  case  of  the  Malthusian  theory. 

Hegelianism  seemed  to  be  occupied  only  with  its  log- 
ical constructions  and  to  have  no  relation  to  the  life  of 
men ;  the  same  seemed  to  be  the  case  with  the  Malthusian 


228  WHAT   SHALL   WE  DO   THEN? 

theory :  it  seemed  to  be  occupied  only  with  the  facts  of 
statistical  data.     But  that  only  seems  so. 

Modern  science  investigates  facts.  But  what  facts  ? 
Why  such  facts,  and  no  others  ? 

The  men  of  modern  science  are  very  fond  of  saying 
with  solemnity  and  conviction :  "  We  investigate  noth- 
ing but  facts,"  imagining  that  these  words  have  some 
meaning. 

It  is  impossible  to  investigate  nothing  but  facts,  be- 
cause of  the  facts  which  are  subject  to  our  investigation 
there  is  an  infinite  number  (in  the  exact  sense  of  the 
word).  Before  investigating  facts  it  is  necessary  to  have 
a  theory,  on  the  basis  of  which  such  or  such  facts  are 
chosen  out  of  the  endless  number.  And  this  theory 
exists,  and  is  even  very  definitely  expressed,  though 
many  of  the  men  of  modem  science  either  ignore  it,  that 
is,  do  not  want  to  know,  or  indeed  do  not  know  it,  or 
pretend  that  they  do  not  know  it.  Even  so  it  has  always 
been  with  all  the  reigning,  guiding  creeds,  —  with  theology 
and  with  philosophy. 

The  foundations  of  every  creed  are  always  given  in 
the  theory,  and  the  so-called  learned  men  only  invent  the 
further  deductions  from  the  original  data,  sometimes  with- 
out knowing  them.  But  there  is  always  a  fundamental 
theory.  Even  so  modern  science  now  chooses  its  facts 
on  the  basis  of  a  very  definite  theory,  which  at  times  it 
knows,  at  times  does  not  want  to  know,  at  times  indeed 
does  not  know ;  but  that  theory  exists. 

This  theory  is :  all  humanity  is  an  undying  organism, 
and  men  are  the  particles  of  the  organism,  each  of  whom  ; 
has  his  special  calling  in  order  to  serve  the  whole. 

Just  as  the  cells,  composing  the  organism,  divide  the 
labour  among  themselves  for  the  struggle  for  existence  of 
the  whole  organism,  strengthen  one  quality  and  weaken 
another,  and  form  themselves  into  one  organ  in  order  the 
better  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  whole  organism,  and  just 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  229 

as  with  the  social  animals,  with  the  ants  and  bees,  the 
separate  individuals  divide  the  labour  among  themselves,  — 
the  queen  laying  eggs,  the  drone  fertilizing  them,  the  bees 
workiDg  for  the  life  of  the  whole,  —  even  so  in  humanity 
and  human  societies  takes  place  the  same  differentiation 
and  integration  of  the  parts. 

And  so,  in  order  to  find  the  law  of  man's  life,  it  is 
necessary  to  study  the  laws  of  life  and  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  organisms ;  in  the  life  and  evolution  of 
the  organisms  we  find  the  following  laws:  the  law 
that  every  phenomenon  is  accompanied  by  something 
more  than  the  immediate  consequences;  another  law 
about  the  instability  of  the  homogeneous;  and  a  third 
law  about  heterogeneity  and  homogeneity,  and  so  forth. 
All  this  seems  very  innocent,  but  it  is  enough  to  make 
the  deductions  from  all  these  investigations  of  facts  in 
order  to  see  at  once  whither  these  facts  tend.  All  these 
facts  tend  to  one  thing,  namely,  to  recognizing  humanity 
or  human  society  as  an  organism,  and  so  to  recognizing 
the  division  of  activities  which  exists  in  human  societies 
as  organic,  that  is,  as  necessary  ;  and  since  in  human 
societies  there  are  manifested  very  many  cruelties  and 
abominations,  these  phenomena  are  not  to'  be  regarded  as 
cruel  and  abominable,  but  to  be  viewed  as  undoubted 
facts,  which  confirm  the  general  law,  namely,  the  law  of 
the  division  of  labour. 

The  philosophy  of  the  spirit  also  justified  every  cruelty 
and  abomination ;  there  it  was  philosophical,  and  so  — 
irregular ;  but  according  to  science  it  all  turns  out  to  be 
scientific,  and  so  —  unquestionable. 

How  can  one  help  accepting  such  a  beautiful  theory ! 
It  is  enough  for  me  to  view  human  society  as  an  object 
of  observation,  in  order  calmly  to  devour  the  labours  of 
others  who  are  perishing,  consoling  myself  with  the 
thought  that  my  activity  as  a  dancer,  lawyer,  doctor, 
philosopher,  actor,  investigator  of  mediumism  and  of  the 


%\brahY 


230  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

form  of  atoms  is  a  functional  activity  of  the  organism  of 
humanity,  and  so  there  cannot  even  be  a  question  as 
to  the  justice  of  my  exploiting  the  labours  of  others,  —  I 
am  only  doing  what  is  pleasant  for  me,  —  as  there  can  be 
no  question  as  to  the  justice  of  the  activity  of  the  brain 
cell  which  is  making  use  of  the  muscular  labour. 

•  We  cannot  help  but  admit  such  a  practical  theory,  in 
order  that  we  may  for  ever  hide  our  conscience  in  our 
pocket,  and  live  a  completely  unbridled  animal  life,  feeling 
under  our  feet  the  imperturbable  support  of  our  modern 
science.  It  is  on  this  new  creed  that  the  justification  of 
the  idleness  and  the  cruelty  of  men  is  now  based. 


XXX. 

This  creed  began  but  recently,  some  fifty  years  ago. 
Its  chief  founder,  the  French  savant  Comte,  a  system- 
atizer  and  at  the  same  time  a  religious  man,  was,  under 
the  influence  of  the  then  new  physiological  investigations 
of  Bichat,  struck  by  an  old  idea,  which  had  been  expressed 
long  ago  by  Menenius  Agrippa,  that  human  societies,  even 
all  humanity,  might  be  considered  as  one  whole,  as  an 
organism,  and  men  as  the  living  particles  of  separate 
organs,  each  of  which  had  its  definite  purpose  to  serve  the 
whole  organism.  Comte  took  such  a  liking  to  this  idea 
that  he  began  upon  it  to  construct  a  philosophic  theory, 
and  this  theory  so  carried  him  away  that  he  entirely  for- 
got that  his  point  of  departure  was  nothing  more  than  a 
pretty  comparison,  which  is  proper  in  a  fable,  but  in  no 
way  can  serve  as  a  foundation  for  science.  As  often  hap- 
pens, he  accepted  his  favourite  assumption  as  an  axiom, 
and  imagined  that  his  whole  theory  was  based  on  the 
firmest  and  most  experimental  foundations.  According 
to  his  theory  it  turned  out  that,  since  humanity  is  an 
organism,  the  knowledge  of  what  a  man  is,  and  what  his 
relation  to  the  world  ought  to  be,  is  possible  only  through 
the  knowledge  of  the  properties  of  this  organism.  In 
order  to  discover  these  properties,  man  is  able  to  make 
observations  on  other,  lower  organisms,  and  from  their 
life  to  make  his  inferences. 

And  so,  in  the  first  place,  the  only  true  method  of 
science,  according  to  Comte,  is  the  inductive,  and  all 
science  is  only  that  which  has  experiment  for  its  founda- 
tion ;  in  the  second,  the  aim  and  apex  of  science  now  is 

231 


232  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

the  new  science  of  the  imaginary  organism  of  humanity, 
or  of  the  superorganic  being,  humanity :  this  new  imag- 
inary science  is  sociology.  From  this  view  of  science  in 
general  it  appeared  that  all  former  knowledge  had  been 
false,  and  all  history  of  humanity  in  the  sense  of  its  self- 
knowledge  was  divided  into  three,  or  really  two,  periods, 

(1)  the  theological  and  the  metaphysical  period,  which 
lasted  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  until  Comte,  and 

(2)  the  present  period  of  the  one,  true  science,  the  positive, 
which  began  with  Comte. 

All  that  was  very  nice ;  there  was  but  one  mistake 
here,  namely,  this,  that  the  whole  building  was  reared  on 
the  sand,  on  the  arbitrary  assertion  that  humanity  is 
an  organism. 

This  assertion  was  arbitrary,  because  we  have  just  as 
little  right  to  acknowledge  the  existence  of  an  organism 
of  humanity,  which  is  not  subject  to  observation,  as  to 
assume  the  existence  of  a  triune  God  and  similar  theo- 
logical propositions. 

This  assertion  was  irregular,  because  to  the  concept  of 
humanity,  that  is,  of  men,  there  was  irregularly  added 
the  definition  of  an  organism,  whereas  hutnanity  lacks  the 
essential  sign  of  an  organism,  a  centre  of  sensation  and  of 
consciousness.  We  call  an  elephant  or  a  bacterion  an 
organism,  only  because  from  analogy  we  assume  in  these 
beings  the  same  unification  of  sensation  and  of  conscious- 
ness which  we  know  in  ourselves ;  but  in  human  societies 
and  in  humanity  this  essential  sign  is  absent,  and  so,  no 
matter  how  many  other  common  signs  we  may  find  in 
humanity  and  in  the  organism,  without  this  essential  sign 
the  acknowledgment  of  humanity  as  an  organism  is 
irregular. 

But  in  spite  of  the  arbitrariness  and  irregularity  of  the 
fundamental  proposition  of  positive  philosophy,  it  was  ac- 
cepted by  the  so-called  cultured  world  with  the  greatest 
sympathy,  on  account  of  its  justification  of  the  existing 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  233 

order  of  things,  so  important  for  the  crowd,  by  acknowl- 
edging the  legality  of  the  existing  violence  in  humanity. 
What  is  remarkable  in  this  respect  is  this,  that  of  Comte's 
works,  which  consist  of  two  parts,  of  positive  philosophy 
and  of  positive  politics,  the  learned  world  accepted  the 
first  only,  the  one  which  justified  on  the  new  CKperimen- 
tal  principles  the  existing  evil  of  human  societies ;  but  the 
second  part,  which  dealt  with  the  moral  obligations  of 
altruism  which  resulted  from  acknowledging  humanity  as 
an  organism,  was  considered  not  only  unimportant,  but 
even  insignificant  and  unscientific. 

The  same  was  repeated  as  with  the  two  parts  of  Kant's 
teaching.  The  critique  of  sound  reason  was  accepted 
by  the  learned  crowd ;  but  the  critique  of  practical  reason, 
the  part  which  contains  the  essence  of  the  moral  teaching, 
was  rejected.  In  Comte's  teaching  they  recognized  as 
scientific  what  pandered  to  the  reigning  evil.  But  even 
the  positive  philosophy  which  the  crowd  accepted,  being 
based  on  an  arbitrary  and  irregular  proposition,  was  in 
itself  too  groundless  and  therefore  unstable,  and  so  was 
unable  to  hold  itself  for  any  length  of  time. 

Suddenly,  among  the  many  idle  speculations  of  the 
men  of  the  so-called  science,  there  appears  again  a  new, 
and  just  as  arbitrary  and  irregular  an  assertion  that  living 
beings,  that  is,  organisms,  have  been  derived  one  from  the 
other,  —  not  only  one  organism  from  another,  but  one 
organism  from  many,  that  is,  that  in  a  very  long  interval 
of  time,  in  a  million  years,  a  fish  and  a  duck,  for  example, 
may  have  not  only  been  derived  from  one  and  the  same 
ancestor,  but  that  also  one  organism  may  have  been  de- 
rived from  many  separate  organisms,  so  that,  for  example, 
a  whole  swarm  of  bees  may  produce  one  animal.  This 
arbitrary  and  incorrect  assertion  was  accepted  by  the 
learned  world  with  still  greater  sympathy.  This  assertion 
was  arbitrary,  because  no  one  has  ever  seen  how  one  or- 
ganism is  produced  from  others,  and  so  the  assumption 


234  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

about  the  origin  of  species  will  always  remain  an  assump- 
tion, and  not  an  experimental  fact.  And  this  assumption 
was  incorrect,  because  the  solution  of  the  question  about 
the  origin  of  species  by  saying  that  they  originated  in 
consequence  of  the  law  of  heredity  and  adaptation  during 
an  infinitely  long  period  of  time,  is  not  at  all  a  solution, 
but  only  a  repetition  of  the  question  in  a  new  form. 

According  to  the  solution  of  the  question  by  Moses 
(the  whole  significance  of  the  theory  consists  in  a  polemic 
with  him)  it  turns  out  that  the  diversity  of  the  species  of 
living  beings  is  due  to  God's  will  and  infinite  power ;  but 
according  to  the  theory  of  evolution  it  turns  out  that  the 
diversity  of  the  living  beings  originated  from  itself  in 
consequence  of  infinitely  diversified  conditions  of  heredity 
and  surroundings  in  an  infinite  period  of  time.  The 
theory  of  evolution,  speaking  in  simple  language,  asserts 
only  that  in  an  infinite  period  of  time  anything  you  please 
may  originate  from  anything  you  please. 

There  is  no  answer  to  the  question,  but  the  same  ques- 
tion is  differently  put:  instead  of  the  will,  accident  is 
put,  and  the  coefficient  of  the  infinite  is  transferred  from 
power  to  time.  But  this  new  assertion,  intensified  by 
Darwin's  followers  in  the  sense  of  arbitrariness  and  incor- 
rectness, strengthened  the  former  assertion  of .  Comte,  and 
so  it  became  the  revelation  of  our  time  and  the  foundation 
of  all  the  sciences,  even  of  history,  philology,  and  religion, 
and,  besides,  according  to  the  naive  confession  of  the 
founder  of  the  theory  himself,  of  Darwin,  his  idea  was 
called  forth  by  Malthus's  law  and  so  advanced  the  theory 
of  the  struggle  of  the  living  beings  and  of  men  for  exist- 
ence as  the  fundamental  law  of  everything  living.  But 
that  was  all  the  crowd  of  idle  people  needed  for  their 
justification. 

Two  unstable  theories,  which  could  not  stand  on  their 
legs,  supported  one  another  and  assumed  a  semblance  of 
stability.      Both  theories  bore  in  themselves  a  meaning 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  235 

which  was  precious  to  the  crowd,  namely,  that  men  are 
not  to  blame  for  the  existing  evil  of  human  societies,  but 
that  the  existing  order  is  precisely  what  it  ought  to  be ; 
and  the  new  theory  was  accepted  by  the  crowd  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  was  needed,  with  full  faith  and  unheard 
of  enthusiasm.  And  on  these  two  arbitrary  and  incorrect 
propositions,  which  were  accepted  as  dogmas  of  faith,  the 
new  scientific  creed  was  firmly  grounded. 

In  subject  and  in  form  this  new  creed  has  an  unusual 
resemblance  to  the  Christian  creed  of  the  church. 

In  subject  this  resemblance  consists  in  this,  that  in 
either  an  unreal,  fantastic  meaning  is  ascribed  to  reality, 
and  this  unreal  meaning  is  made  a  subject  for  investiga- 
tion. 

In  the  church  -  Christian  creed  the  real  Christ  has 
assumed  the  fantastic  meaning  of  God  himself;  in  the 
positive  creed  the  fantastic  meaning  of  an  organism  is 
ascribed  to  an  actual  being,  —  to  living  men. 

In  form  the  resemblance  of  the  two  creeds  is  striking 
in  this,  that  in  either  a  certain  comprehension  of  one  set 
of  men  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  one  infallibly  correct 
and  true  comprehension. 

In  the  Christianity  of  the  church  the  comprehension  of 
divine  revelation  by  the  people  who  called  themselves  the 
church  is  recognized  as  sacred  and  exclusively  true ;  ac- 
cording to  the  positive  creed  the  comprehension  of  science 
by  the  men  who  call  themselves  scientific  is  recognized  as 
unquestionable  and  true.  Just  as  the  Christians  of  the 
church  recognized  the  beginning  of  the  true  knowledge  of 
God  only  from  the  foundation  of  their  church,  and  only, 
as  it  were,  out  of  civiHty,  said  that  the  former  believers 
were  also  the  church ;  even  so  the  positive  science,  accord- 
ing to  its  assertion,  began  only  with  Comte,  and  the  men 
of  science,  again  only  out  of  civility,  admit  the  existence  of 
science  before  their  day,  but  only  in  the  person  of  some 
of  its  representatives,  such  as  Aristotle ;  just  like  the  church, 


236  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

SO  the  positive  science  completely  excludes  the  knowledge 
of  all  the  rest  of  humanity,  recognizing  all  such  knowl- 
edge as  erroneous. 

The  resemblance  goes  even  farther:  just  as  to  the 
aid  of  the  fundamental  dogma  of  theology,  of  the  divinity 
of  Christ  and  of  the  trinity,  there  comes  the  old  dogma  of 
man's  fall  and  of  his  redemption  through  Christ's  death, 
which  receives  a  new  meaning,  and  of  these  two  dogmas 
the  popular  ecclesiastic  doctrine  is  composed,  —  so  in  our 
time,  to  the  aid  of  Comte's  fundamental  dogma  about  the 
organism  of  humanity  comes  the  old  dogma  of  evolution, 
which  receives  a  new  meaning,  and  from  both  the  popular 
scientific  creed  is  composed. 

In  either  creed  the  new  dogma  is  necessary  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  old  one,  and  is  comprehensible  only  in  connec- 
tion with  the  fundamental  dogma.  If  to  the  believer  in 
Christ's  divinity  it  is  not  clear  and  not  comprehensible 
why  God  came  down  upon  earth,  the  dogma  of  redemption 
gives  this  explanation. 

If  to  the  behever  in  the  organism  of  humanity  it  is  not 
clear  why  an  aggregate  of  individuals  may  be  considered 
an  organism,  the  dogma  of  evolution  furnishes  this  expla- 
nation. 

The  dogma  of  redemption  is  necessary  in  order  to 
harmonize  the  contradiction  with  the  actuality  of  the 
first  dogma. 

God  came  down  upon  earth  in  order  to  save  men,  and 
men  are  not  saved,  —  how  is  this  contradiction  to  be 
harmonized  ?  The  dogma  of  redemption  says :  "  If  you 
believe  in  the  redemption,  you  are  saved." 

Similarly  the  dogma  of  evolution  is  necessary  in  order 
to  solve  the  contradiction  with  the  actuality  of  the  first 
dogma :  humanity  is  an  organism,  and  yet  we  see  that  it 
does  not  answer  the  first  sign  of  an  organism,  —  how  is 
this  to  be  harmonized  ?  And  so  the  dogma  of  evolution 
says :    "  Humanity    is    an    organism   in    formation.       If 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  237 

you  believe  in  this,  you  can  view  humanity  as  an 
organism." 

And  just  as  for  a  man  who  is  free  from  the  supersti- 
tion of  the  trinity  and  the  divinity  of  Christ  it  is  even 
impossible  to  comprehend  wherein  the  interest  and  mean- 
ing of  the  doctrine  of  redemption  lies,  and  this  meaning 
is  explained  only  by  acknowledging  the  fundamental 
dogma  about  Christ  being  God  himself,  —  even  so  for 
humanity,  which  is  free  from  the  positive  superstition,  it 
is  even  impossible  to  comprehend  in  what  lies  the  interest 
of  the  teaching  about  the  origin  of  species  of  evolution, 
and  this  interest  is  explained  only  when  one  knows  the 
fundamental  dogma  about  humanity  being  an  organism. 

And  just  as  all  the  finesses  of  theology  are  compre- 
hensible to  him  only  who  believes  in  the  fundamental 
dogmas,  even  so  all  the  finesses  of  sociology,  which  now 
occupy  all  the  minds  of  the  men  of  the  very  latest  and 
profoundest  science,  are  comprehensible  to  the  believer 
only. 

The  resemblance  of  the  two  creeds  consists  further  in 
this,  that  the  propositions  once  accepted  on  faith  and  no 
longer  subject  to  investigation  serve  as  a  foundation 
for  the  strangest  of  theories,  and  the  preachers  of  these 
theories,  having  appropriated  to  themselves  the  method 
of  asserting  their  right  to  recognize  themselves  as  holy  in 
theology  and  as  scientific  in  knowledge,  that  is,  infallible, 
reach  the  most  arbitrary,  incredible,  and  groundless 
assertions,  which  they  express  with  the  greatest  solemnity 
and  seriousness,  and  which  with  the  same  seriousness  and 
solemnity  are  disputed  in  detail  by  those  who  do  not 
agree  on  particular  points,  but  equally  recognize  the 
fundamental  dogmas. 

The  Basil  the  Great  of  this  creed,  Spencer,  for  example, 
in  one  of  his  first  writings  expresses  these  creeds  as  fol- 
lows :  societies  and  organisms,  he  says,  differ  in  this : 

(1)  That,  beginning  as  small  aggregates,  they  imper- 


238  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

ceptibly  grow  in  mass,  so  that  some  of  them  reach  a  size 
which  is  ten  thousand  times  as  large  as  the  original. 

(2)  That,  while  in  the  beginning  they  are  of  such  a 
simple  structure  that  they  may  be  regarded  as  deprived 
of  all  structure,  they  during  the  time  of  their  growth 
acquire  a  constantly  increasing  complexity  of  structure. 

(3)  That,  although  in  their  early,  undeveloped  period 
there  exists  between  them  hardly  any  mutual  relation 
of  the  particles  between  themselves,  this  relation  finally 
becomes  so  powerful  that  the  activity  and  the  life  of  each 
particle  becomes  possible  only  with  the  activity  and  the 
life  of  the  rest. 

(4)  That  the  life  and  the  development  of  society  are 
independent  and  more  prolonged  than  the  life  and  the 
development  of  any  of  its  component  units,  which  are 
born,  grow,  act,  reproduce,  and  die  separately,  while  the 
body  politic,  which  is  composed  of  them,  continues  to  live 
generation  after  generation,  developing  in  the  mass,  on  ac- 
count of  the  perfection  of  the  structure  and  the  functional 
activity. 

After  that  follow  the  points  of  difference  between 
organisms  and  society,  and  it  is  proved  that  these  dif- 
ferences are  only  seeming  ones,  and  that  organisms  and 
societies  are  completely  alike. 

To  a  fresh  man  there  presents  itself  the  direct  question : 
"What  are  you  talking  about?  Why  is  humanity  an 
organism  ?  or  why  does  it  resemble  it  ? 

"  You  say  that  societies  according  to  these  four  signs 
are  like  organisms,  but  there  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  You 
only  take  a  few  of  the  signs  of  the  organism,  and  classify 
human  societies  according  to  them. 

"  You  adduce  four  signs  of  resemblance,  then  take  the 
signs  of  difference,  but  only  the  seeming  ones  (as  it  appears 
to  us),  and  you  conclude  that  human  societies  may  be 
viewed  as  organisms.  But  this  is  an  idle  play  of  dialec- 
tics and  nothing  else.     On  such  a  foundation  it  is  possible 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  239 

to  classify  anything  you  please  according  to  the  signs  of 
the  organism." 

I  shall  take  the  first  thing  that  occurs  to  me,  let  us  say 
the  forest,  as  it  is  sowed  in  the  field  and  grows  up : 

(1)  Beginning  as  a  small  aggregate,  etc. ;  precisely  the 
same  takes  place  in  the  fields,  when  the  seeds  slowly  take 
root  in  them,  and  the  forest  grows  up. 

(2)  In  the  beginning  the  structure  is  simple,  then  the 
complexity  grows,  etc. ;  precisely  the  same  is  true  of 
the  forest :  first  there  are  nothing  but  little  birches,  then 
willows  and  hazel  bushes  are  added;  at  first  they  grow 
straight,  and  later  their  branches  intertwine. 

(3)  The  interrelation  of  the  particles  increases  to  such 
an  extent  that  the  life  of  each  particle  depends  on  the 
life  and  the  activity  of  the  rest ;  precisely  the  same  is  true 
of  the  forest :  the  hazel  bushes  warm  the  trunks  (cut  them 
out,  and  the  other  trees  will  freeze),  the  border  under- 
brush guards  it  against  the  wind,  the  seed  trees  continue 
the  species,  the  tall  and  leafy  trees  furnish  shade,  and  the 
life  of  one  tree  depends  on  the  other. 

(4)  The  separate  parts  may  die,  but  the  whole  lives ; 
the  same  is  true  of  the  forest :  as  the  proverb  says.  The 
forest  does  not  lament  a  tree. 

Precisely  the  same  is  true  with  the  example  generally 
adduced  by  the  advocates  of  the  theory,  that  if  the  arm  is 
chopped  off,  the  arm  will  die;  plant  a  tree  beyond  the 
shade  and  the  forest  soil,  and  it  will  die. 

There  is  also  a  remarkable  resemblance  between  this 
creed  and  the  Christian  dogma  of  the  church  and  any 
other  which  is  based  on  dogmas  that  are  taken  upon 
faith,  on  account  of  its  impermeability  against  the  proofs 
of  logic.  Having  shown  that  the  forest  may,  according  to 
this  theory,  with  equal  right  be  considered  an  organism, 
you  think  that  you  have  proven  to  them  the  incorrectness 
of  their  definition,  —  but  that  is  where  you  are  mistaken. 

The  definition  which  they  give  to  the  organism  is  so 


240  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

inexact  and  so  extensible  that  they  can  classify  under 
their  definition  anything  they  please. 

"  Yes,"  they  will  say,  "  a  forest  may  be  regarded  as  an 
organism.  A  forest  is  a  peaceful  interaction  of  individuals 
which  do  not  destroy  one  another,  —  an  aggregate, — 
and  its  parts  may  also  come  into  a  closer  union  and,  like 
a  bee  swarm,  may  become  an  organisno." 

Then  you  will  say  that  if  it  is  so,  the  birds,  and  the 
insects,  and  the  grasses  of  this  forest,  which  interact  and 
do  not  destroy  one  another,  may  also  be  viewed  with  the 
trees  as  one  organism. 

They  will  agree  even  to  that.  Every  aggregate  of  liv- 
ing beings  which  interact  and  do  not  destroy  one  another 
may,  according  to  their  theory,  also  be  viewed  as  an 
organism.  You  may  assume  a  union  and  cooperation 
between  any  things  you  please,  and  from  evolution  you 
may  affirm  that  out  of  anything  you  please  there  will  in 
a  very  long  time  be  produced  anything  you  please. 

It  is  impossible  to  prove  to  those  who  believe  in  the 
trinity  of  God  that  that  is  not  so,  but  it  is  possible  to 
show  them  that  their  assertion  is  an  assertior  not  of 
knowledge,  but  of  faith,  and  that  if  they  assert  that  there 
are  three  Gods,  I  with  the  same  right  may  assert  that 
there  are  seventeen  and  a  half  of  them ;  the  same,  with 
even  greater  assurance,  may  be  proved  to  the  followers 
of  the  positive  and  evolutionary  science.  On  the  basis 
of  this  science  I  will  undertake  to  prove  anything  you 
please.  And  what  is  most  remarkable  is  this,  that  this 
same  positive  science  recognizes  the  scientific  method  as  a 
sign  of  true  knowledge,  and  has  itself  defined  what  it 
calls  a  scientific  method.  What  it  calls  the  scientific 
method  is  common  sense,  and  it  is  this  common  sense 
which  accuses  it  at  every  step. 

The  moment  those  who  occupied  the  places  of  the 
saints  began  to  feel  that  there  was  nothing  saintly  left  in 
them,  and  that  they  were  all  cursed,  like  the  Pope  and 


WHAT   SHALL    WE   DO   THEN?  241 

our  Synod,  they  immediately  called  themselves,  not  only 
holy,  but  also  most  holy.  The  moment  science  felt  that 
there  was  nothing  of  common  sense  left  in  it,  it  called 
itself  the  science  of  common  sense,  that  is,  scientific 
science. 


XXXI. 

The  division  of  labour  is  the  law  of  everything  in  exist- 
ence, and  so  it  must  be  also  in  human  societies.  It  is 
very  likely  that  it  is  so,  but  the  question  still  remains 
whether  the  division  of  labour  which  is  now  in  human 
societies  is  that  division  of  labour  which  there  ought  to 
be.  And  if  people  consider  a  certain  division  of  labour 
irrational  and  unjust,  no  science  can  prove  to  people  that 
that  which  they  regard  as  irrational  and  unjust  ought  to 
exist. 

The  theologic^  theory  has  proved  that  the  power  is 
from  God,  and  it  is  very  likely  that  it  is,  but  the  question 
is  still  left :  whose  power  is  from  God,  Catherine's  or 
Pugach^v's  ?  And  no  finesses  of  theology  have  been  able 
to  solve  this  doubt. 

The  philosophy  of  the  Spirit  has  proved  that  the  state 
is  a  form  of  the  evolution  of  individuals ;  but  the  question 
was  still  left :  can  the  state  of  a  Nero  or  of  a  Dzhingis- 
khan  be  regarded  as  a  form  of  the  evolution  of  individu- 
als ?  And  no  transcendental  words  have  been  able  to 
solve  this. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  scientific  science. 

The  division  of  labour  is  a  condition  of  the  life  of 
organisms  and  of  human  societies ;  but  what  is  it  in  these 
human  societies  that  must  be  regarded  as  an  organic 
division  of  labour?  And  no  matter  how  much  science^, 
may  study  the  division  of  labour  in  the  cells  of  rain- 
worms, all  these  observations  will  not  make  a  man  regard 
as  correct  a  division  of  labour  which  is  not  recognized  as 
such  by  his  reason  and  his  conscience. 

No  matter  how  convincing  the  proofs  may  be  in  the 

242 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  243 

case  of  the  division  of  labour  of  the  cells  in  organisms 
under  observation,  a  man,  if  he  is  not  yet  deprived  of  rea- 
son, will  none  the  less  say  that  it  is  not  right  for  a  man 
to  be  weaviug  cottons  all  his  life,  and  that  this  is  not  a 
division  of  labour,  but  an  oppression  of  men. 

Spencer  and  the  rest  say  that  there  are  whole  settle- 
ments of  weavers,  and  that,  therefore,  the  weavers'  activ- 
ity is  an  organic  division  of  labour,  —  but  saying  this, 
they  say  precisely  what  the  theologians  have  said. 

There  is  a  power,  and  so  it  is  from  God,  no  matter 
what  it  may  be.  There  are  weavers,  consequently  such 
is  the  division  of  labour.  It  would  be  well  to  say  so,  if 
the  power  and  the  population  of  the  weavers  were  made 
by  themselves,  but  we  know  that  they  are  not  made  by 
themselves,  but  by  us.  And  so  we  have  to  find  out 
whether  we  made  this  power  by  God's  will  or  by  our 
own,  and  whether  we  made  these  weavers  according  to 
an  organic  law  or  according  to  something  else. 

People  live  and  support  themselves  by  agriculture  as  is 
proper  for  all  men  :  a  man  puts  up  a  blacksmith's  forge 
and  mends  his  plough,  and  his  neighbour  comes  and  asks 
him  to  mend  his,  and  promises  labour  or  money  for  it.  A 
third,  a  fourth  come,  and  in  the  society  of  these  men  the 
following  division  of  labour  takes  place :  a  blacksmith  is 
created.  Another  man  teaches  his  children  well,  and  his 
neighbour  brings  his  children  to  him,  and  asks  him  to 
teach  them,  —  and  a  teacher  is  created.  But  the  smith 
and  the  teacher  became  and  still  are  such  because  they 
were  asked,  and  they  remain  such  only  so  long  as  they 
are  asked  to  be  a  smith  or  a  teacher.  If  it  should  happen 
that  there  should  be  many  smiths  and  teachers,  or  that 
their  labour  is  not  wanted,  they  would,  as  common  sense 
demands,  and  as  always  happens  where  there  are  no 
causes  for  violating  the  regularity  of  the  division  of 
labour,  at  once  give  up  their  professions  and  return  to 
agriculture. 


244  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

People  who  act  in  this  manner  are  guided  by  their  rea- 
son and  their  conscience,  and  so  we,  the  men  who  are 
endowed  with  reason  and  conscience,  assert  that  such  a 
division  of  labour  is  regular.  But  if  it  should  happen 
that  the  smiths  could  compel  others  to  work  for  them,  and 
should  continue  to  make  horseshoes,  when  they  were  not 
needed,  and  the  teachers  should  teach  when  there  was  no 
one  to  teach,  every  fresh  man,  as  a  man,  that  is,  as  a 
being  endowed  with  reason  and  with  conscience,  would 
plainly  see  that  that  would  not  be  a  division,  but  a 
seizure  of  somebody  else's  labour,  because  such  an  activ- 
ity would  depart  from  that  one  measure  by  which  we  can 
tell  the  regularity  of  the  division  of  labour :  the  demand 
for  this  labour  by  other  men,  and  a  freely  offered  remu- 
neration for  this  labour.  And  yet  just  such  activity  is 
what  according  to  the  scientific  science  is  called  division 
of  labour. 

People  do  what  others  do  not  even  think  of  demanding, 
and  demand  to  be  fed  for  it,  saying  that  this  is  just,  be- 
cause it  is  a  division  of  labour. 

What  forms  the  chief  pubhc  calamity  of  the  masses,  — 
not  in  our  country  alone,  —  is  the  government,  the  num- 
berless officials  ;  what  forms  the  cause  of  the  economic 
wretchedness  of  our  time  is  what  the  English  call  over- 
production (the  manufacturing  of  a  mass  of  articles  which 
cannot  be  got  rid  of,  and  which  nobody  wants) :  all  this 
comes  from  the  strange  comprehension  of  the  division  of 
labour. 

It  would  be  strange  to  see  a  shoemaker,  who  thought 
that  people  were  obliged  to  support  him,  because  he 
never  stopped  making  boots,  which  people  have  long 
stopped  wanting ;  but  what  is  to  be  said  of  those  men  of 
the  government,  the  church,  science,  the  arts,  who  d,o  not 
make  boots,  who  do  not  produce  anything  tangible  or 
useful  for  the  people,  for  whose  commodities  there  is  no 
demand,  and  who,  on  the  basis  of  -the  division  of  labour, 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  245 

demand  just  as  boldly  that  they  should  be  given  palatable 
food  and  drink,  and  be  comfortably  clothed  ? 

There  may  be,  and  there  are,  wizards  for  whose  activity 
there  is  a  demand,  and  to  whom  people  carry  for  this 
pancakes  and  half-stoups ;  but  it  is  hard  to  imagine  that 
there  should  be  wizards  whose  witchery  is  not  wanted, 
and  who  none  the  less  demand  boldly  to  be  given  good 
food,  because  they  would  practise  their  magical  art. 

And  yet  it  is  this  that  happens  in  our  world  with  the 
people  of  the  government,  the  church,  science,  and  art. 

And  all  this  takes  place  on  the  basis  of  that  false 
comprehension  of  the  division  of  labour,  which  is  not 
determined  by  one's  conscience,  but  by  observation,  which 
with  such  unanimity  is  professed  by  the  men  of  science. 

The  division  of  labour  has  indeed  existed  at  all  times, 
but  it  is  regular  only  when  man  decides  by  his  reason  and 
his  conscience  what  it  is  to  be,  and  not  when  he  shall 
observe  it ;  but  the  conscience  and  the  reason  of  all  men 
decide  this  question  in  a  very  simple,  unquestionable,  and 
unanimous  manner. 

They  decided  that  the  division  of  labour  is  regular  only 
when  the  special  activity  of  a  man  is  so  necessary  to  men 
that  they,  asking  him  to  serve  them,  themselves  offer  to 
support  him  for  what  he  will  do  for  them.  But  when 
a  man  can  from  childhood  to  his  thirtieth  year  sit  on  the 
neck  of  others,  promising,  after  he  has  learned  it,  to  do 
something  useful,  which  nobody  asks  him  to  do,  and  when 
he  later,  from  his  thirtieth  year  until  his  death,  can  pro- 
ceed living  in  the  same  way,  all  the  time  with  only  the 
promise  to  do  something  which  nobody  asks  him  to  do, 
that  will  not  be  any  division  of  labour  (as,  indeed  it  does 
not  exist  in  our  society),  but,  what  it  really  is,  only  a 
seizure  by  the  strong  of  the  labour  of  others;  it  is  the 
same  seizure  of  other  men's  labour  by  the  strong  which 
formerly  the  theologians  used  to  call  divine  destination, 
and  the  philosophers  later  called  necessary  forms  of  life. 


246  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

and  now  the  scientific  science  calls  organic  division  of 
labour. 

The  whole  significance  of  the  reigning  science  is  only 
in  this. 

It  has  now  become  a  distributer  of  diplomas  for 
idleness,  because  it  alone  analyzes  and  decides  in  its 
sanctuaries  which  is  a  parasitical  and  which  an  organic 
activity  of  man  in  the  social  organism,  —  as  though  a 
man  could  not  find  out  this  same  thing  much  more  cor- 
rectly and  more  quickly  by  consulting  his  reason  and  his 
conscience. 

And  as  formerly  for  the  clergy  and  later  for  the  men 
of  the  State  there  could  have  been  no  doubt  as  to  who 
were  most  useful  to  others,  so  it  seems  now  to  the  scien- 
tific science  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  fact  that 
its  activity  is  unquestionably  organic :  they,  the  scientific 
and  the  artistic  actors,  are  the  most  precious  brain  cells 
of  the  org'  nism.  But  God  be  with  them !  Let  them 
reign,  eat  and  drink  what  is  good,  and  live  idly,  as  lived 
and  reigned  the  priests  and  the  sophists,  if  only,  as  priests 
and  sophists,  they  did  not  corrupt  people. 

Ever  since  there  have  been  people,  rational  beings, 
they  have  distinguished  between  good  and  evil  and  have 
made  use  of  what  the  men  before  them  have  distinguished 
in  this  respect:  they  have  struggled  against  the  evil, 
sought  the  true  and  best  path,  and  slowly  but  unyieldingly 
advanced  on  this  path.  And  always,  barring  this  path, 
there  have  risen  before  men  all  kinds  of  deceptions  which 
have  for  their  aim  to  show  that  this  must  not  be  done, 
and  that  it  is  necessary  to  live  the  best  way  one  can. 
There  arose  the  terrible,  old  deceptions  of  the  ecclesiastics ; 
with  a  terrible  struggle  and  labour  men  slowly  emanci- 
pated themselves  from  them,  but  before  they  managed  to 
free  themselves,  a  new  deception,  the  politico-philosoph- 
ical, took  the  place  of  the  old  ones.  Men  freed  them- 
selves even  from  this. 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  247 

And  a  new,  a  still  worse,  deception  grew  out  on  the 
path  of  men,  —  the  scientific  deception. 

This  new  deception  is  just  like  the  older  ones :  its 
essence  consists  in  substituting  something  external  for  the 
activity  of  our  reason  and  of  our  conscience  and  of  those 
who  have  lived  before  us :  in  the  church  teaching  this 
external  matter  was  revelation,  in  science  it  is  observation. 

The  trap  of  this  science  consists  in  this,  that,  pointing 
out  to  men  the  grossest  deviations  of  the  activity  of  men's 
reason  and  conscience,  it  destroys  in  them  their  faith 
in  reason  and  conscience,  and,  concealing  its  deception, 
which  is  clothed  in  a  scientific  theory,  it  assures  them 
that  they,  studying  the  external  phenomena,  are  studying 
undoubted  facts,  such  as  will  reveal  to  them  the  law  of 
man's  hfe.  But  the  mental  demoralization  consists  in 
this,  that,  by  acquiring  the  belief  that  the  objects,  which 
in  reahty  are  subject  to  the  conscience  and  to  reason,  are 
subject  to  observation,  these  people  lose  the  consciousness 
of  good  and  evil  and  become  incapable  of  understanding 
those  expressions  and  definitions  of  good  and  evil  which 
have  been  worked  out  by  the  whole  preceding  life  of 
humanity.  All  this  in  their  jargon  is  conventional  and 
subjective.  All  this  has  to  be  abandoned,  they  say  ;  it  is 
impossible  through  reason  to  understand  the  truth,  be- 
cause it  is  possible  to  err,  and  there  is  another  path  which 
is  faultless  and  almost  mechanical :  it  is  necessary  to 
study  facts.  But  facts  have  to  be  studied  on  the  basis  of 
scientific  science,  that  is,  of  two  groundless  propositions, 
—  of  positivism  and  of  evolution,  —  which  are  given  out 
as  most  unquestionable  truths. 

And  the  reigning  science  declares,  with  a  not  less  decep- 
tive solemnity  than  does  the  church,  that  the  solution  of 
all  the  questions  of  life  is  possible  only  through  the  study 
of  the  facts  of  Nature  and  especially  of  the  organisms. 

The  credulous  multitude  of  youths,  overcome  by  the 
novelty   of   this   authority,  which  is  not    only  not  yet 


248  WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO    THEN? 

destroyed,  but  even  not  yet  touched  by  criticism,  throws 
itself  with  avidity  on  the  study  of  these  facts  in  the 
natural  sciences,  on  that  only  path  which,  according  to 
the  assertion  of  the  reigning  doctrine,  can  lead  to  the 
elucidation  of  the  questions  of  life. 

But  the  farther  the  disciples  move  in  this  study,  the 
farther  and  farther  removed  from  them  becomes,  not  only 
the  possibility,  but  even  the  idea  itself  of  the  solution 
of  the  questions  of  life,  and  the  more  and  more  do  they 
become  accustomed,  not  so  much  to  observe,  as  to  take  on 
trust  the  observations  of  others  (to  believe  in  cells,  in  pro- 
toplasm, in  the  fourth  state  of  matter,  and  so  forth) ;  the 
more  and  more  does  the  form  shield  the  contents  from 
them ;  the  more  and  more  do  they  lose  the  consciousness 
of  good  and  evil  and  the  ability  to  understand  those  expres- 
sions and  definitions  of  good  and  evil  which  are  worked 
out  by  the  whole  preceding  life  of  humanity ;  the  more 
and  more  do  they  acquire  a  special  scientific  jargon  of 
conventional  expressions,  which  has  no  universal  human 
significance  ;  the  more  and  more  do  they  enter  into  ravines 
of  unenlightened  observations ;  the  more  and  more  are  they 
deprived  of  the  ability,  not  only  to  think  independently,  but 
even  to  understand  a  fresh,  human  thought  which  is  found 
outside  their  Talmud ;  and,  above  all  else,  they  pass  their 
best  years  in  becoming  dissociated  from  life,  that  is,  from 
labour,  get  accustomed  to  regard  their  condition  'as  justi- 
fied, and  grow  even  physically  to  be  worthless  parasites. 
And  just  like  the  theologians  and  Talmudists,  they  com- 
pletely wrench  their  brains  and  become  eunuchs  of 
thought.  And  just  hke  them,  in  proportion  with  their 
dulling,  they  acquire  a  self-confidence  which  deprives 
them  for  ever  of  the  possibility  of  a  return  to  the  simple, 
clear,  and  universally  human  manner  of  thinking. 


XXXII. 

The  division  of  labour  in  human  society  has  always 
existed  and,  no  doubt,  will  always  exist ;  but  for  us  the 
question  is  not  whether  it  is  and  will  be,  but  what  we 
must  be  guided  by,  in  order  that  the  division  may  be  regu- 
lar. Now  if  we  take  observation  as  a  standard,  we  shall 
in  this  manner  at  once  renounce  all  standards,  and  then 
every  division  of  labour  which  we  shall  see  among 
people,  and  which  will  appear  regular  to  us,  will  be  re- 
garded as  regular  by  us,  —  and  to  this  indeed  the  reigning 
scientific  science  leads  us. 

Division  of  labour !  Some  busy  themselves  with  men- 
tal, spiritual  labour,  others  with  muscular,  physical  labour. 
With  what  assurance  these  people  speak !  They  want  to 
believe  so,  and  it  seems  to  them  that  there  is  indeed  taking 
place  a  completely  regular  exchange  of  services,  where  in 
reality  it  is  only  a  very  simple  and  old  form  of  violence. 

"  Thou,  or  rather  you  "  (for  it  is  always  a  number  of 
people  who  feed  one),  "  feed  and  clothe  me  and  do  for  me 
all  the  coarse  labour  which  I  shall  demand,  and  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  receive  from  childhood,  and  I  will 
do  for  you  that  mental  labour  which  I  can  and  to  which 
I  am  accustomed.  You  give  me  the  physical  food,  and  I 
will  furnish  you  with  your  spiritual  pabulum."  (The  cal- 
culation seems  quite  correct,  and  it  would  be  quite  correct, 
if  this  exchange  of  services  were  voluntary,  if  those  who 
furnish  the  physical  food  were  not  compelled  to  furnish  it 
before  they  receive  the  spiritual  pabulum.) 

The  producer  of  the  spiritual  food  says :  "  In  order  that 

249 


250  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

I  may  be  able  to  give  you  the  spiritual  food,  feed  and 
clothe  me,  and  carry  out  my  impurities." 

The  producer  of  the  physical  food  is  compelled  to  do 
this,  without  uttering  any  demands,  and  has  to  give  the 
physical  food,  though  he  may  not  receive  any  spiritual 
food.  If  the  exchange  were  voluntary,  the  conditions  of 
the  two  would  be  the  same. 

We  agree  to  this,  that  the  spiritual  food  is  as  necessary 
for  man  as  the  physical  food.  The  savant,  the  artist,  says  : 
"  Before  we  can  begin  to  serve  men  by  means  of  the  spir- 
itual food,  it  is  necessary  for  men  to  provision  us  with 
the  physical  food."  But  why  should  not  the  producer  of 
physical  food  say  that  before  he  is  to  serve  them  with 
the  physical  food  he  needs  the  spiritual  food,  and  that,  if 
he  does  not  receive  it,  he  is  unable  to  work  ? 

You  say :  "  I  need  the  work  of  the  ploughman,  smith, 
shoemaker,  carpenter,  mason,  privy  cleaner,  and  others  in 
order  that  I  may  be  able  to  prepare  my  spiritual  food." 
Every  labourer  ought  equally  to  say :  "  Before  I  go  out  to 
work  in  order  to  prepare  the  physical  food  for  you,  I  must 
possess  the  fruits  of  the  spiritual  food.  To  have  strength 
for  the  work  there  are  indispensable  to  me :  the  religious 
teaching,  the  order  in  the  social  life,  the  application  of 
knowledge  to  labour,  the  joys  and  the  consolations  which 
the  arts  give.  I  have  no  time  to  work  out  my  teaching 
about  the  meaning  of  life,  —  give  it  to  me.  I  have  no 
time  to  think  out  statutes  of  social  life,  such  that  justice 
would  not  be  impaired,  —  give  it  to  me.  I  have  no  time 
to  busy  myself  with  mechanics,  physics,  chemistry,  tech- 
nology, —  give  me  the  books  with  the  indications  of  how 
to  improve  my  tools,  my  methods  of  work,  my  dwelling, 
my  heating,  my  lighting.  I  have  no  time  to  busy  myself 
with  poetry,  plastic  art,  music,  —  give  me  the  necessary 
incitements  and  consolations  for  life ;  give  me  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  arts.  You  say  that  you  cannot  busy  your- 
self with  your  important  and  necessary  works,  if  you  shall 


WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  251 

be  deprived  of  the  labour  which  the  labouring  people  are 
bearing  for  you,  but  I  say,"  the  labourer  will  say,  "  that  I 
cannot  possibly  busy  myself  with  my  not  less  important 
and  necessary  labours,  —  ploughing,  hauling  manure,  and 
cleaning  up  your  impurities,  —  if  I  shall  be  deprived  of  the 
religious  guidance  and  of  what  corresponds  to  the  demands 
of  my  mind  and  conscience,  of  a  rational  government  which 
will  make  my  labour  secure,  of  the  indications  of  knowl- 
edge for  the  alleviation  of  my  work,  of  the  joy  of  art  for 
the  ennoblement  of  my  labour.  Everything  which  you 
heretofore  have  offered  me  in  the  form  of  spiritual  food  is 
not  only  of  no  use  to  me,  but  I  even  fail  to  understand 
to  whom  it  can  be  of  any  use.  And  so  long  as  I  do  not 
get  this  food,  which  is  proper  for  me,  as  it  is  for  any  man, 
I  cannot  feed  you  with  the  physical  food,  which  I  pro- 
duce."* 

What  if  the  labourer  should  say  so  ? 

If  he  should,  it  would  not  be  a  conceit,  but  the  sim- 
plest justice. 

If  a  labourer  should  say  this,  there  would  be  more 
justice  on  his  side  than  on  the  side  of  the  man  of  mental 
labour.  There  is  more  justice  on  his  side,  because  the 
labour  which  is  supplied  by  the  labourer  is  more  impor- 
tant, more  indispensable,  than  the  labour  of  the  producer 
of  mental  labour,  even  for  this  reason,  that  nothing  keeps 
a  man  of  the  mental  labour  from  giving  to  the  labourer 
that  spiritual  food  which  he  has  promised  him ;  but  what 
keeps  the  labourer  from  giving  the  physical  food  is  the 
fact  that  he  himself  has  not  enough  of  this  physical  food. 

What  are  we,  the  men  of  the  mental  labour,  going  to 
answer,  if  such  simple  and  lawful  demands  are  made  on 
us  ?  How  do  we  satisfy  them  ?  With  Filar^t's  Catechism, 
with  Sokolov's  Sacred  History,  with  sheets  from  all  kinds 
of  monasteries  and  from  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Isaac, — 
for  the  gratification  of  his  religious  demands ;  with  the 
Qode  of  laws,  with  cassation  decrees  of  all  kinds  of  de- 


252  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

partments,  and  with  all  kinds  of  statutes  of  committees 
and  commissions,  —  for  the  gratification  of  the  demands 
for  order ;  with  spectral  analysis,  the  measurement  of  the 
milky  ways,  imaginary  geometry,  microscopic  investiga^ 
tions,  disputes  about  spiritism  and  mediumism,  the  ac- 
tivity of  the  academy  of  sciences,  —  for  the  gratification 
of  his  demands  for  knowledge.  With  what  shall  we 
satisfy  his  artistic  demands  ?  With  Pushkin,  Dostoevski, 
Turgenev,  L.  Tolstoy,  with  pictures  of  the  French  Salon 
and  of  our  artists,  representing  nude  women,  satin,  vel- 
vet, landscapes,  and  genre,  with  Wagner's  music  and  our 
musicians ;  none  of  these  things  are  any  good,  or  can  be 
any  good,  because  we,  with  our  right  to  exploit  the  labour 
of  the  masses  and  with  the  absence  of  all  obligations  in 
our  preparation  of  the  spiritual  food,  have  entirely  lost 
from  view  that  one  purpose  which  our  activity  ought  to 
have.  We  do  not  even  know  what  the  working  people 
need,  we  have  even  forgotten  their  manner  of  life,  their 
view  of  things,  their  language ;  we  have  even  forgotten 
the  labouring  people,  and  we  study  them  as  an  ethno- 
graphic rarity  or  as  a  newly  discovered  America. 

And  so  we,  demanding  the  physical  food  for  ourselves, 
have  undertaken  to  furnish  the  spiritual  food ;  but  in 
consequence  of  that  imaginary  division  of  labour,  which 
entitles  not  only  us  to  dine  first,  and  work  later,  but  also 
whole  generations  to  dine  sumptuously  without  working 
at  all,  we  have  prepared,  in  the  shape  of  a  retribution  to 
^the  masses  for  our  sustenance,  what,  as  we  imagine,  is 
good  only  for  us,  for  science,  and  for  art,  but  useless 
and  quite  incomprehensible  and  disgusting,  like  Lim- 
burger  cheese,  to  those  people  whose  labours  we  devour 
under  the  pretext  of  furnishing  them  with  spiritual  food. 

In  our  blindness  we  have  to  such  an  extent  let  out  of 
view  the  obligation  which  we  have  taken  upon  ourselves 
that  we  have  even  forgotten  in  the  name  of  what  our 
labour  is  produced,  and  have    made  the  people,  whom 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  253 

we  undertook  to  serve,  a  subject  for  our  scientific  and 
artistic  activity. 

We  study  and  represent  them  for  our  amusement  and 
distraction,  and  we  have  entirely  forgotten  that  we  are 
not  to  study  and  represent  them,  but  to  serve  them. 

We  have  to  such  an  extent  let  out  of  sight  this  obliga- 
tion which  we  have  taken  upon  ourselves  that  we  have 
not  even  noticed  that  what  we  have  undertaken  to  do  in 
the  sphere  of  the  sciences  and  arts  has  been  done  not  by 
us,  but  by  others,  and  our  place  seems  to  be  occupied. 
It  turns  out  that  while  we  have  been  disputing  —  as  the 
theologians  did  about  the  germless  generation  —  about 
the  spontaneous  generation  of  the  organisms,  or  about 
spiritism,  or  about  the  form  of  the  atoms,  or  about  pan- 
genesis, or  about  what  there  is  in  the  protoplasm,  and  so 
forth,  the  failures  and  apostates  of  the  sciences  and  arts 
have  begun,  by  order  of  the  business  men,  who  have  in 
view  nothing  but  their  own  gain,  to  furnish  this  spiritual 
food  to  the  masses.  It  is  now  forty  years  in  Europe  and 
ten  with  us  in  Eussia  that  there  have  been  circulated 
millions  of  books  and  pictures  and  song-books,  and  shows 
have  been  opened,  and  the  people  look  on  and  sing  and 
receive  their  spiritual  food,  but  not  from  us  who  have 
undertaken  to  furnish  it,  and  we,  who  justify  our  idleness 
by  the  spiritual  food  which  we  are  supposed  to  be  fur- 
nishing, sit  and  flap  our  eyes.  But  we  ought  not  to  flap 
our  eyes,  for  the  last  justification  is  slipping  out  from 
underneath  us. 

We  have  specialized  ourselves.  We  have  our  special 
functional  activity.  We  are  the  brain  of  the  people.  They 
feed  us,  and  we  have  undertaken  to  teach  them.  Only 
in  the  name  of  this  have  we  emancipated  ourselves  from 
labour.  Now  what  have  we  taught  them  ?  They  waited 
a  year,  tens,  hundreds  of  years.  And  still  we  discuss 
and  teach  and  amuse  one  another,  and  have  entirely  for- 
gotten them.     We  have  forgotten  them  to  such  an  extent 


254  WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN? 

that  others  have  undertaken  to  teach  and  amuse  them, 
and  we  have  not  even  noticed  with  how  little  seriousness 
we  spoke  of  the  division  of  labour,  and  how  obvious  it  is 
that  what  we  say  of  the  benefit  which  we  confer  on  the 
masses  has  been  nothing  but  a  shameless  excuse ! 


xxxm. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  church  guided  the  spiritual 
life  of  the  people  of  our  world ;  the  church  promised  the 
good  to  people,  and  for  this  freed  itself  from  participation 
in  humanity's  struggle  for  life.  And  the  moment  it  did 
so,  it  departed  from  its  calUng,  and  people  turned  away 
from  it.  It  is  not  the  errors  of  the  church  that  have 
ruined  it,  but  the  departure  of  its  servants  from  the  law 
of  labour,  which  was  secured  in  the  time  of  Constantine 
with  the  help  of  the  temporal  power ;  their  privilege  of 
idleness  and  luxury  has  begot  the  errors  of  the  church. 
With  this  privilege  began  the  church's  care  for  the 
church,  and  not  for  the  people  whom  it  undertook  to 
serve,  and  the  servants  of  the  church  abandoned  them- 
selves to  idleness  and  debauch. 

The  state  undertook  to  guide  the  lives  of  men.  The 
state  promised  men  justice,  peace,  security,  order,  gratifi- 
cation of  general  spiritual  and  material  needs,  and  for  this 
the  people  who  served  the  state  emancipated  themselves 
from  participation  in  humanity's  struggle  for  life.  And 
the  servants  of  the  state,  the  moment  they  acquired  the 
possibility  of  exploiting  the  labour  of  others,  did  the  same 
that  the  servants  of  the  church  did.  Their  end  was  no 
longer  the  people,  but  the  state,  and  the  servants  of  the 
state,  —  from  the  kings  down  to  the  lowest  officials,  —  in 
Eome  and  in  France,  and  in  England  and  in  Eussia  and 
in  America,  abandoned  themselves  to  idleness  and  de- 
bauch. 

And  people  lost  their  faith  in  the  state,  and  anarchy 
consciously  presents  itself  as  an  ideal. 

The  state  has  lost  its  enchantment  for  the  people,  only 
256 


256  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

because  its  servants  recognized  their  right  to  exploit  the 
labours  of  the  people. 

The  same  was  done  by  science  and  by  art,  with  the  aid 
of  the  power  of  the  state,  which  they  undertook  to  sup- 
port. And  they  stipulated  for  themselves  the  right  to  be 
idle  and  exploit  the  labours  of  others,  and  similarly  became 
false  to  their  calling. 

And  similarly  their  error  was  due  only  to  this,  tha€  the 
servants  of  science,  by  advancing  the  falsely  raised  prin- 
ciple of  the  division  of  labour,  recognized  the  right  to  ex- 
ploit the  labours  of  others  and  lost  the  meaning  of  their 
calling,  making  as  their  aim  not  the  benefit  of  the  people, 
but  the  mysterious  benefit  of  science  and  of  the  arts,  and, 
like  their  predecessors,  they  abandoned  themselves  to 
idleness  and  debauch,  —  not  so  much  sensuous  as  mental 
debauch. 

They  say  that  science  and  the  arts  have  given  much  to 
humanity.     That  is  quite  true. 

The  church  and  the  state  have  given  much  to  human- 
ity, but  not  because  they  have  misused  their  power  and 
because  their  servants  have  departed  from  the  eternal 
obligation  of  labour  for  life,  which  is  common  to  all  men, 
but  in  spite  of  it. 

Even  so  science  and  the  arts  have  given  much  to  hu- 
manity, not  because  the  men  of  science  and  of  art,  under 
the  form  of  the  division  of  labour,  live  on  the  backs  of  the 
labouring  class,  but  in  spite  of  it.  The  Roman  republic 
was  not  powerful  because  her  citizens  were  able  to  lead  a 
life  of  debauch,  but  because  among  her  citizens  there  were 
virtuous  men.     The  same  is  true*  of  science  and  of  art. 

Science  and  art  have  given  much  to  humanity,  not  be- 
cause their  servants  formerly  had  occasionally  a  chance, 
and  now  always  have  a  chance,  to  free  themselves  from 
labour,  but  because  there  have  existed  men  of  genius, 
who,  without  making  use  of  this  right,  have  promoted 
humanity. 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  257 

The  class  of  the  learned  and  of  the  artists,  which,  on 
the  basis  of  the  false  division  of  labour,  makes  demands 
on  the  exploitation  of  the  labour  of  others,  cannot  cooper- 
ate with  the  success  of  true  science  and  of  true  art,  be- 
cause the  lie  cannot  produce  any  truth. 

We  have  become  so  accustomed  to  those  our  pampered, 
fat,  and  enfeebled  representatives  of  mental  labour  that 
it  appears  monstrous  to  us  to  see  a  savant  or  an  artist 
plough  or  haul  manure.  It  seems  to  us  that  everything 
will  perish,  and  that  all  his  wisdom  will  be  shaken  up  on 
a  cart,  and  that  all  those  great  artistic  pictures,  which 
he  harbours  in  his  breast,  will  become  soiled  in  the  ma- 
nure ;  but  we  have  become  so  accustomed  to  this  that  it 
does  not  seem  strange  to  us  that  our  servant  of  science, 
that  is,  the  servant  and  teacher  of  truth,  in  causing  others 
to  do  for  him  what  he  can  do  himself,  passes  half  his 
time  in  eating  sweet  food,  smoking,  chattering,  liberal 
gossips,  reading  of  newspapers  and  novels,  and  going  to  the 
theatres ;  it  does  not  appear  strange  to  us  to  see  our  phi- 
losopher in  the  restaurant,  in  the  theatre,  at  the  ball,  and 
we  are  not  surprised  to  hear  that  the  artists  who  delight 
and  ennoble  our  souls  have  passed  their  lives  in  drunken- 
ness, in  playing  cards,  and  with  women,  if  not  worse. 

Science  and  art  are  beautiful  things,  and  for  the  very 
reason  that  they  are  beautiful  they  ought  not  to  be  spoiled 
by  adding  to  them  debauch,  that  is,  the  liberation  from 
man's  obligation  by  means  of  labour  to  serve  his  life  and 
the  lives  of  others. 

Science  and  art  have  advanced  humanity,  yes !  but  not 
because  the  men  of  science  and  of  art,  under  the  form  of 
the  division  of  labour,  have  in  words  and,  what  is  more 
important,  with  their  deeds  taught  others  to  make  use  of 
violence,  and  to  exploit  the  poverty  and  sufferings  of  men 
for  the  purpose  of  freeing  themselves  from  the  very  first  and 
unquestionable  human  obligation  of  working  with  their 
hands  in  the  general  struggle  of  humanity  with  Nature. 


XXXIV. 

"  But  it  is  only  the  division  of  labour,  the  emancipation 
of  the  men  of  science  and  of  art  from  the  necessity  of 
working  for  their  food,  that  has  made  possible  that  prog- 
ress of  the  sciences  which  we  see  in  our  time,"  they  say 
to  this. 

"  If  all  were  obhged  to  plough,  there  would  not  have 
been  attained  those  enormous  results  which  have  been 
arrived  at  in  our  time ;  there  would  not  be  that  striking 
progress  which  has  so  increased  man's  power  over  Nature ; 
there  would  not  be  those  astronomical  discoveries,  which 
so  startle  the  human  mind  and  which  have  made  navi- 
gation more  secure,  nor  steamers,  railways,  wonderful 
bridges,  tunnels,  steam-engines,  telegraphs,  photographs, 
telephones,  sewing-machines,  phonographs,  electricity, 
telescopes,  spectroscopes,  microscopes,  chloroform,  anti- 
septics, carbolic  acid." 

I  cannot  count  out  everything  of  which  our  age  is  so 
proud. 

Such  a  list  and  the  raptures  over  oneself  and  over  one's 
exploits  may  be  found  in  almost  any  newspaper  and  pop- 
ular book.  These  raptures  over  oneself  are  so  frequently 
repeated,  we  are  so  overrejoiced  at  ourselves,  that  we  are 
seriously  convinced  with  Jules  Verne  that  science  and 
art  never  made  such  progress  as  in  our  time. 

Now  all  this  wonderful  progress  we  owe  to  the  division 
of  labour,  so  how  can  we  help  acknowledging  it  ? 

Let  us  admit  that  the  progress  made  in  our  century  is 
indeed  striking,  wonderful,  unusual ;  let  us  admit  that  we 
are  such  peculiarly  fortunate  men  as  to  live  in  an  unusual 

268 


WHAT   SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  259 

time.  But  let  us  try  and  value  this  progress,  not  in  the 
light  of  our  self-contentment,  but  of  the  principle  defended 
by  this  progress  of  the  division  of  labour,  that  is,  by  that 
mental  labour  of  the  men  of  science  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people,  which  is  ta  redeem  the  emancipation  from  labour, 
of  the  men  of  science  and  of  art.  All  this  progress  is 
very  remarkable,  but  by  some  unfortunate  accident,  which 
is  acknowledged  by  the  men  of  science,  this  progress  has 
so  far  not  improved  the  condition  of  the  labourer,  but 
has  rather  made  it  worse. 

If  a  labourer,  instead  of  walking,  can  travel  on  the 
railway,  the  railway  has,  on  the  other  hand,  burned  his 
forest,  taken  the  grain  away  from  under  his  nose,  and 
brought  him  to  the  condition  resembling  slavery,  —  to 
that  of  the  railway  labourer. 

If,  thanks  to  steam  engines  and  machines,  a  labourer 
can  purchase  wretched  cottons,  these  engines  and  ma- 
chines, on  the  other  hand,  have  deprived  him  of  earnings 
at  home  and  have  brought  him  to  the  state  of  complete 
slavery  to  the  manufacturer. 

If  there  are  telegraphs,  which  he  is  not  kept  from 
using,  but  which  his  means  do  not  permit  him  to  make 
use  of,  every  product  of  his,  as  soon  as  it  rises  in  price, 
is  bought  up  under  his  nose  by  the  capitahsts  at  a  low 
price,  thanks  to  the  telegraph,  before  the  labourer  finds 
out  about  the  demand  for  this  commodity. 

If  there  are  telephones  and  telescopes,  verses,  novels, 
theatres,  ballets,  symphonies,  operas,  picture-galleries,  and 
so  forth,  the  life  of  the  labourer  has  not  improved  from 
these,  because,  by  the  same  unfortunate  accident,  these 
are  not  accessible  to  him. 

Thus,  in  general,  —  and  in  this  the  men  of  science 
agree,  —  all  these  unusual  inventions  and  productions  of 
art  have  so  far  not  in  the  least  improved  the  life  of  the 
labourer,  if  they  have  not  made  it  worse. 

Thus,  if  to  the  question  about  the  reality  of  the  prog- 


260  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

ress  achieved  by  the  sciences  and  the  arts,  we  do  not 
apply  our  rapture  over  ourselves,  but  the  same  standard 
on  the  basis  of  which  the  division  of  labour  is  defended, 
that  is,  the  benefit  conferred  on  the  labouring  people,  we 
shall  see  that  we  have  not  yet  any  firm  foundations  for 
that  self-contentment  to  which  we  so  readily  abandon 
ourselves. 

A  peasant  will  travel  on  the  railway,  a  woman  will  buy 
cottons,  in  the  hut  there  will  be  a  lamp,  and  not  a  torch, 
and  a  peasant  will  light  his  pipe  with  a  match,  —  that  is 
convenient ;  but  by  what  right  can  I  say  that  the  rail- 
ways and  factories  have  benefited  the  people  ? 

If  a  peasant  travels  on  the  railway  and  buys  a  lamp, 
cottons,  and  matches,  he  does  so  because  he  cannot  be 
prohibited  from  doing  so ;  but  we  all  know  that  railways 
and  factories  were  never  built  for  the  benefit  of  the 
masses,  so  what  sense  is  there  in  adducing  accidental 
comforts,  which  the  labourer  uses  fortuitously,  as  a  proof 
of  the  usefulness  of  these  institutions  for  the  people  ? 

We  all  know  that  if  the  engineers  and  capitalists,  who 
built  the  railway  or  the  factory,  thought  of  the  labouring 
man,  they  did  so  only  in  the  sense  of  squeezing  the  last 
strength  out  of  him.  And,  as  we  see,  both  in  our  country 
and  in  Europe,  and  in  America,  they  have  fully  accom- 
plished this. 

In  everything  harmful  there  is  something  useful.  After 
a  conflagration  we  may  warm  ourselves  at  the  fire  and 
light  our  pipe  with  a  coal;  but  what  sense  is  there  in 
saying  that  a  conflagration  is  useful  ? 

Let  us  at  least  not  deceive  ourselves.  We  all  know 
the  motives  by  which  roads  and  factories  are  built  and 
coal-oil  and  matches  are  obtained. 

An  engineer  builds  a  road  for  the  government,  for 
military  purposes,  or  for  the  capitalists,  for  financial  pur- 
poses. He  makes  machines  for  the  manufacturer,  for  his 
own  gain  and  for  that  of  the  capitalist.    Everything  which 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  261 

he  makes  or  invents,  he  makes  or  invents  for  the  purposes 
of  the  government,  of  the  capitalist,  of  the  rich.  All  his 
most  cunning  devices  of  engiQeering  are  directed  outright 
either  to  the  harm  of  the  people,  as  in  the  case  of  guns, 
torpedoes,  solitary  cells,  appliances  for  the  monopolies, 
telegraphs,  and  so  forth ;  or  to  articles  which  fail  not  only 
to  be  useful,  but  even  apphcable,  to  the  masses,  such  as 
the  electric  light,  telephones,  and  all  the  endless  improve- 
ments of  comfort ;  or,  finally,  to  such  objects  as  can  cor- 
rupt the  people  and  extort  the  last  money,  that  is,  the 
last  labour,  from  them,  such  as,  above  all,  whiskey,  wine, 
beer,  opium,  tobacco,  then  cottons,  kerchiefs,  and  all  kinds 
of  trifles. 

But  if  it  happens  that  the  inventions  of  the  men  of 
science  and  the  labours  of  the  engineers  now  and  then 
are  useful  to  the  people,  as,  for  instance,  the  railway,  cot- 
tons, iron  pots,  scythes,  this  proves  only  that  in  the  world 
everything  is  connected  and  out  of  every  harmful  activity 
there  may  come  an  accidental  benefit  for  those  to  whom 
this  activity  was  harmful. 

The  men  of  science  and  of  art  could  say  that  their 
activity  is  useful  for  the  people  only  if  the  men  of  science 
and  of  art  make  it  their  purpose  to  serve  the  people  as 
now  they  make  it  their  purpose  to  serve  the  governments 
and  the  capitalists. 

We  could  say  this  only  if  the  men  of  science  and  of 
art  made  it  their  purpose  to  attend  to  the  people's  wants, 
but  there  do  not  exist  such. 

All  the  learned  people  are  busy  with  their  priestly 
occupations,  from  which  follow  investigations  of  proto- 
plasms, spectral  analyses  of  stars,  and  so  forth.  But 
science  has  never  thought  of  this,  with  what  kind  of  an 
axe  head  and  helve  it  is  more  advantageous  to  chop ;  what 
kind  of  a  saw  does  the  best  work ;  how  it  is  better  to 
prepare  the  dough  for  the  bread',  out  of  what  flour,  and 
how  it  is  to  be  set ;  how  to  make  a  fire,  what  stoves  to 


262  WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO    THEN? 

put  up,  what  food,  what  drink,  what  dishes  to  use,  what 
mushrooms  may  be  eaten,  and  what  is  the  best  way  to 
prepare  them.    And  yet  all  this  is  the  business  of  science. 

I  know,  according  to  its  definition,  science  must  be 
useless,  but  this  is  an  obvious  and  too  bold  an  excuse. 
The  business  of  science  is  to  serve  the  people.  We  have 
invented  telegraphs,  telephones,  phonographs,  but  what 
have  we  advanced  in  life,  in  the  labour  of  the  masses? 
They  have  counted  two  millions  of  bugs !  But  have  they 
domesticated  a  single  new  animal  since  Biblical  times, 
when  all  our  animals  were  already  domesticated  ?  The 
elk,  the  stag,  the  partridge,  the  quail,  the  grouse,  are  still 
wild.  The  botanists  have  found  the  cell,  and  the  proto- 
plasm in  the  cell,  and  something  else  in  the  protoplasm, 
and  something  else  inside  of  that.  These  occupations 
will  apparently  not  end  for  a  long  time,  because  appar- 
ently there  can  be  no  end  to  them,  and  so  they  will  never 
have  the  time  to  busy  themselves  with  what  people  need. 
And  so  again,  since  Egyptian  and  Jewish  antiquity,  when 
the  wheat  and  lentils  were  already  cultivated,  up  to  our 
time  not  one  plant  has  been  added  to  the  food  of  the 
people,  unless  it  be  the  potato,  which,  however,  was  not 
acquired  through  science. 

They  have  invented  torpedoes,  appliances  for  the  mon- 
opolies and  for  privies,  but  the  spinning-wheel,  the  weaver's 
loom,  the  plough,  the  axe  handle,  the  flail,  the  rake,  the 
sweep,  the  vat,  —  all  these  are  precisely  as  they  were  in 
the  time  of  Eiirik.  And  if  anything  has  been  changed,  it 
has  not  been  changed  by  scientific  men. 

The  same  is  true  of  art.  We  have  raised  a  mass  of 
men  to  the  level  of  great  writers,  have  analyzed  these 
writers  down  to  the  minutest  details,  and  have  written 
mountains  of  criticism,  and  criticisms  on  the  criticisms, 
and  again  criticisms  on  the  criticisms  of  the  criticisms,  and 
have  collected  picture-galleries,  and  have  studied  all  kinds 
of  &chools  of  art  down  to  the  finest  points,  and  we  have 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  263 

symphonies  and  operas  such  as  give  even  us  trouble  to 
listen  to.  And  what  have  we  added  to  the  popular  epics, 
legends,  fairy-tales,  songs  ?  What  pictures  and  what 
music  have  we  given  to  the  masses  ?  At  Nikolskaya  they 
make  books  and  pictures  for  the  people,  and  in  Tula 
accordions,  and  in  neither  have  we  taken  any  part. 

Most  striking  and  obvious  is  the  falseness  of  the  direc- 
tion of  our  science  and  our  arts  in  those  very  branches 
which,  one  would  think,  from  their  very  problems  ought 
to  be  useful  to  the  people,  but  which,  in  consequence  of 
the  false  direction,  present  themselves  as  rather  pernicious 
than  useful. 

An  engineer,  physician,  teacher,  artist,  author,  to  judge 
from  his  calling,  ought  to  serve  the  people,  and  what 
happens  ?  With  the  present  tendencies  they  can  do 
nothing  but  harm  to  the  people. 

An  engineer,  a  mechanician,  has  to  work  with  a  capital 
Without  a  capital  he  is  not  good  for  anything.  All  his 
knowledge  is  such  that  in  order  to  manifest  it  he  needs 
capital  and  the  exploitation  of  the  labourer  on  a  large 
scale,  and,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  he  has  been 
taught  to  spend  at  least  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand 
a  year,  and  so  cannot  go  to  the  country  where  nobody  can 
give  him  any  remuneration,  he  by  his  very  occupation  is 
no  good  for  serving  the  people.  He  can  by  means  of 
higher  mathematics  figure  out  the  span  of  a  bridge  and 
the  transmission  of  a  motor,  and  so  forth,  but  he  is  non- 
plussed in  the  presence  of  the  simple  demands  of  the 
people's  labour.  How  to  improve  a  plough  or  a  cart, 
how  to  make  a  brook  fordable,  —  problems  which  exist 
in  those  conditions  of  life  in  which  the  labourer  finds  him- 
self, —  of  all  that  he  knows  nothing  and  understands  less 
than  the  very  lowest  peasant.  Give  him  shops,  all  the 
working  people  he  wants,  order  machines  from  abroad, 
and  then  he  will  fix  everything.  But  he  knows  nothing, 
and  can  know  nothing,  about  finding,  under  certain  condi- 


264  WHAT   SUALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

tions  of  the  labour  of  millions  of  people,  the  means  for 
making  this  labour  easier,  and  by  his  occupations,  habits, 
and  demands  made  on  him  by  Hfe  he  is  no  good  for  this 
work> 

The  physician  is  in  a  still  worse  condition.  His  whole 
imaginary  science  is  so  placed  that  he  is  able  to  cure  only 
those  who  do  nothing  and  are  able  to  make  use  of  the 
labours  of  others.  He  needs  an  endless  number  of  costly 
appliances,  of  rooms,  food,  privy,  in  order  that  he  may  be 
able  to  act  scientifically  ;  in  addition  to  his  salary  he 
needs  such  expenses  that,  in  order  to  cure  a  single  patient, 
he  has  to  starve  to  death  a  hundred  of  those  who  will 
bear  these  expenses.  He  has  studied  with  celebrities  in 
the  capitals,  who  make  a  practice  only  of  such  patients  as 
can  be  cured  in  clinics,  or  who,  curing  themselves,  are 
able  to  buy  the  necessary  machines  for  their  cure,  and 
even  to  go  at  once  from  the  north  to  the  south,  or  to 
such  and  such  watering-places. 

Their  science  is  such  that  each  county  physician  com- 
plains of  not  having  the  means  for  curing  the  labouring 
people,  that  they  are  so  poor  that  it  is  impossible  to  place 
the  patient  in  hygienic  conditions,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
this  physician  complains  that  there  are  no  hospitals,  that 
he  cannot  manage  all  the  work,  and  that  he  needs  more 
assistants,  doctors,  and  surgical  help.  What  conclusion 
do  we  come  to  ?  To  this,  that  the  chief  calamity  of  the 
masses,  from  which  originate  and  spread  their  diseases, 
and  remain  uncured,  is  the  insufficiency  of  the  means  for 
life. 

And  here  science  under  the  banner  of  the  division  of 
labour  calls  its  champions  to  the  aid  of  the  masses.  AU 
the  science  has  been  adapted  for  the  wealthy  classes  and 
puts  the  problem  as  to  how  to  cure  those  people  who  can 
get  everything  for  themselves,  and  send  those  who  have 
nothing  superfluous  to  be  cured  in  the  same  way. 

But  the  means  are  wanting,  and  so  it  is  necessary  to 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  265 

take  them  from  the  masses,  who  have  aihnents  and  be- 
come infected,  but  are  not  cured,  for  lack  of  means. 

And  the  defenders  of  medicine  for  the  people  say  that 
this  business  has  so  far  been  httle  developed. 

It  is  evident  that  it  has  been  little  developed,  because 
if,  God  forfend,  it  should  be  developed,  and  the  people 
were  shouldered  with  twenty  instead  of  two  doctors,  mid- 
wives,  and  surgical  assistants  to  each  county,- — there 
would  soon  be  no  persons  to  cure.  The  scientific  coopera- 
tion, of  which  the  defenders  of  the  science  speak,  ought 
to  be  of  a  very  different  kind..  The  cooperation  which 
ought  to  be  has  not  yet  begun.  It  will  begin  when  the 
man  of  science,  the  engineer  or  the  physician,  shall  not 
regard  as  legal  that  division,  that  is,  seizure  of  other 
people's  labour,  which  now  exists;  when  he  shall  not 
consider  it  his  right  to  take  from  people,  I  do  not  say 
hundreds  of  thousands,  but  even  a  modest  one  thousand 
or  five  hundred  roubles  for  his  cooperation,  and  shall  live 
among  the  labouring  people  in  the  same  conditions  as 
they,  and  then  shall  apply  their  knowledge  to  questions 
of  mechanics,  engineering,  hygiene,  and  the  curing  of  the 
labouring  masses.  But  now  the  science,  which  grows  fat 
at  the  expense  of  the  labouring  people,  has  entirely  for- 
gotten the  conditions  of  the  life  of  these  people,  ignores 
(as  it  expresses  itself)  these  conditions,  and  most  seriously 
feels  offended  because  its  supposed  knowledge  finds  no 
application  among  the  people. 

The  sphere  of  medicine,  hke  that  of  engineering,  still 
lies  untouched.  All  the  questions  as  to  how  best  to 
divide  the  time  of  labour,  how  best  to  nourish  oneself, 
how,  in  what  manner,  when  to  dress  oneself  and  counter- 
act the  dampness  and  cold,  how  best  to  wash,  nurse  the 
children,  swaddle  them,  and  so  forth,  especially  in  the  con- 
ditions in  which  the  labouring  people  are,  —  aU  these 
questions  have  not  yet  been  put. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  activity  of  the  scientific,  the 


266  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

pedagogical  teachers.  Here  science  has  put  the  matter 
in  such  a  shape  that  according  to  science  it  is  possible  to 
teach  rich  people  only,  and  the  teachers,  like  the  engineers 
and  physicians,  involuntarily  cling  to  money,  and  with  us 
more  particularly  to  the  government. 

And  this  cannot  be  otherwise,  because  a  model  school 
(as  a  general  rule,  the  more  scientific  the  arrangement 
of  the  school,  the  more  expensive  it  is),  with  adjustable 
benches,  globes,  and  maps,  and  libraries,  and  methodics  for 
teacher  and  pupils,  is  such  that  it  demands  the  doubling 
of  the  taxes  for  each  village.     So  science  demands. 

The  masses  need  the  children  for  work,  and  the  more 
they  need  them,  the  poorer  they  are.  The  scientific 
defenders  say :  Pedagogy  even  now  benefits  the  people, 
and  when  it  is  developed  it  will  be  better  stilL  Yes,  peda- 
gogy will  be  developed,  and,  instead  of  twenty,  there  will  be 
one  hundred  schools  to  each  county,  and  all  of  them  scien- 
tific, and  the  masses  will  support  these  schools,  —  then 
they  will  grow  poorer  still  and  will  need  the  work  of 
their  children  even  more  than  before. 

"  What  is  to  be  done  ? "  people  say  to  this. 

The  government  will  build  the  schools  and  will  make 
instruction  compulsory,  as  in  Europe ;  but  the  money  will 
again  be  taken  from  the  people,  and  they  will  work  harder 
than  ever,  and  will  have  less  leisure  from  work,  and  there 
will  be  no  compulsory  education.  Again  there  is  this  one 
salvation,  and  this  is,  that  the  teacher  should  live  in  the 
conditions  of  the  labourer  and  should  teach  for  the  remu- 
neration which  will  voluntarily  and  gladly  be  given  him. 

Such  is  the  false  tendency  of  science,  which  deprives  it 
of  the  possibility  of  fulfilling  its  obligation,  which  is,  to 
serve  the  masses.  Still  more  obvious  is  this  false  tend- 
ency of  our  intellectual  classes  in  the  case  of  the  activity 
of  art,  which  from  its  very  purpose  ought  to  be  accessible 
to  the  masses. 

Science  may  fall  back  on  its  silly  excuse  that  science 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  267 

acts  for  science,  and  that,  when  it  has  been  worked  out  by 
the  learned,  it  will  become  accessible  to  the  masses  also ; 
but  art  —  if  it  is  art  —  must  be  accessible  to  all,  espe- 
cially to  those  in  whose  name  it  is  produced.  Our  con- 
dition of  art  strikingly  arraigns  the  workers  of  art  for  not 
wanting,  nor  knowing  how,  nor  being  able  to  be  useful  to 
the  masses. 

A  painter,  to  prepare  his  great  productions,  must  have 
a  studio,  which  is  to  be  large  enough  for  an  association 
of  forty  joiners  or  shoemakers  to  work  in,  who  are  freezing 
and  choking  to  death  in  miserable  purlieus;  but  that  is 
not  enough:  he  needs  Nature,  costumes,  travels.  The 
Academy  of  Arts  has  spent  milHons,  collected  from  the 
people,  for  the  encouragement  of  the  arts,  and  the  pro- 
ductions of  this  art  hang  in  palaces  and  are  incompre- 
hensible and  useless  to  the  masses. 

Musicians,  to  express  their  great  ideas,  have  to  bring 
together  some  two  hundred  men  in  white  neckties  or  in 
costumes,  and  to  spend  hundreds  of  thousands  in  order 
to  stage  an  opera.  And  the  productions  of  this  art  cannot 
call  forth  among  the  people,  even  if  they  ever  could  make 
use  of  them,  anything  but  perplexity  and  ennui. 

Writers,  composers,  it  would  seem,  are  in  no  need  of 
immediate  surroundings,  in  studios,  Nature,  orchestras, 
and  actors ;  but  even  here  it  appears  that  a  writer,  a 
composer,  to  say  nothing  of  the  comforts  of  his  apart- 
ments, and  of  all  the  enjoyments  of  life,  needs,  for  the 
preparation  of  his  great  productions,  travel,  palaces,  cabi- 
nets, the  enjoyment  of  the  arts,  the  attendance  at  theatres, 
concerts,  balls,  and  so  forth.  If  he  does  not  himself  earn 
a  competence,  he  gets  a  pension,  that  he  may  compose 
better.  And  again,  these  compositions,  so  much  esteemed 
by  us,  remain  rubbish  for  the  people,  and  are  absolutely 
useless  to  them. 

What  if,  as  the  men  of  the  sciences  and  arts  wish,  there 
will  breed  even  more  such  purveyors  of  spiritual  pabulum, 


268  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

and  we  shall  have  in  each  village  to  build  a  studio,  intro- 
duce orchestras,  and  maintain  a  composer  in  those  con- 
ditions which  the  men  of  the  arts  regard  as  indispensable 
for  themselves  ? 

I  assume  that  the  labouring  people  will  forego  the 
pleasure  of  ever  seeing  a  picture,  hearing  a  symphony,  or 
reading  verses  or  novels,  only  not  to  be  obliged  to  feed  all 
these  drones. 

But  why  could  not  the  men  of  the  arts  serve  the 
people  ?  In  every  hut  there  are  images  and  pictures  ; 
every  peasant,  man  or  woman,  sings  ;  many  of  them  have 
musical  instruments,  and  all  tell  stories  and  recite  verses, 
while  many  read.  How  is  it  that  the  two  things,  which 
are  made  one  for  the  other,  like  a  key  and  a  lock,  have 
gone  so  far  apart  that  there  is  not  even  a  chance  for 
bringing  them  together  ? 

TeU  a  painter  without  a  studio.  Nature,  or  costumes  to 
paint  pictures  worth  five  kopeks  each,  and  he  will  tell  you 
that  this  means  renouncing  art,  as  he  understands  it.  Tell 
a  musician  to  play  the  balaMyka,  accordion,  or  guitar,  and 
to  teach  the  women  to  sing  songs.  Tell  the  poet  to  throw 
away  his  poems,  his  novels,  his  satires,  and  to  compose 
song-books,  stories,  and  fairy-tales  which  the  unlettered 
may  understand  —  and  they  will  tell  you  that  you  are 
crazy.  But  is  it  less  insanity  for  people,  who,  only  in  the 
name  of  serving  as  spiritual  pabulum  to  those  men  who 
have  brought  them  up,  and  feed  and  clothe  them,  have 
emancipated  themselves  from  labour,  so  to  forget  their 
obligation  as  to  become  unaccustomed  to  prepare  this  food 
which  is  so  useful  to  the  masses,  and  to  regard  this  very 
departure  from  their  obhgation  as  their  special  distinc- 
tion? 

"  But  so  it  is  everywhere,"  you  are  told. 

It  is  irrational  everywhere,  and  it  wiU  remain  so  as 
long  as  people,  under  the  pretext  of  the  division  of  labour 
and  of  the  promise  of  serving  as  spiritual  food  for  the 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  269 

masses,  will  only  absorb  the  labour  of  the  masses.  There 
will  be  a  ministration  to  the  masses  by  means  of  the 
sciences  and  the  arts  only  when  the  people  who  live 
among  the  masses  and  like  the  masses,  without  claiming 
any  privileges,  will  offer  them  their  scientific  and  artistic 
services,  which  to  accept  or  reject  will  depend  on  the  will 
of  the  masses. 


XXXV. 

To  say  that  the  activity  of  the  sciences  and  arts  has 
cooperated  with  the  forward  movement  of  humanity, 
comprehending  by  this  activity  what  is  now  called  by 
this  name,  is  the  same  as  to  say  that  the  clumsy,  inter- 
feriQg  plashing  of  the  oars  in  a  vessel  which  is  going 
down  the  stream  is  cooperating  with  the  motion  of  the 
vessel.     It  only  interferes  with  it. 

The  so-called  division  of  labour,  that  is,  the  seizure  of 
other  people's  labour,  which  in  our  day  has  become  a  con- 
dition of  the  activity  of  the  men  of  science  and  of  art,  has 
been  and  still  remains  the  chief  cause  of  the  slow  forward 
movement  of  humanity.  The  proof  of  this  is  found  in 
that  confession  of  aU.  men  of  science  that  the  acquisitions 
of  science  and  of  the  arts  are  iaaccessible  to  the  labour- 
ing masses,  on  account  of  the  unequal  distribution  of 
wealth. 

But  the  inequality  of  this  distribution  does  not  diminish 
proportionately  with  the  progress  of  the  sciences  and  arts, 
but  only  keeps  increasing.  No  wonder  that  it  is  so, 
because  this  unequal  distribution  of  wealth  arises  only 
from  the  theory  of  the  division  of  labour,  which  is  preached 
by  the  men  of  science  and  of  art  for  their  personal,  selfish 
ends.  Science  defends  the  division  of  labour  as  an  un- 
changeable law,  sees  that  the  distribution  of  wealth,  which 
is  based  on  the  division  of  labour,  is  incorrect  and  per- 
nicious, and  asserts  that  its  activity,  which  recognizes  the 
division  of  labour,  will  make  people  happy.  It  turns  out 
that  one  set  of  men  make  use  of  the  labours  of  others ; 
but,  if  they  will  for  a  very  long  time  and  in  still  greater 

270 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  271 

measure  make  use  of  the  labours  of  others,  this  unequal 
distribution  of  wealth,  that  is,  the  exploitation  of  the 
labours  of  others,  will  come  to  an  end. 

Men  are  standing  at  an  ever-increasing  source  of  water, 
and  are  busy  leading  it  aside  from  the  thirsting  people,  and 
assert  that  it  is  they  who  are  producing  this  water, 
and  that  very,  very  soon  there  will  be  enough  of  it  to 
suffice  for  all.  But  this  water,  which  has  been  flowing 
without  interruption,  and  which  supports  all  humanity, 
is  not  only  not  the  consequence  of  the  activity  of  those 
men  who,  standing  at  the  source,  are  leading  it  aside,  but 
it  flows  and  spreads,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  these  men 
to  arrest  this  flow. 

There  has  always  existed  the  true  church  in  the  sense 
of  people  who  are  united  in  the  highest  truth  attainable 
at  a  certain  period  of  humanity,  and  always  it  has  been 
different  from  the  church  which  called  itself  so,  and  there 
has  always  existed  science  and  art,  but  not  what  called 
itself  by  that  name. 

To  those  who  recognize  themselves  as  representatives 
of  science  and  of  art  of  a  certain  period,  it  always  seems 
that  they  have  done,  and,  above  all,  will  this  very  minute 
do,  some  remarkable  miracles,  and  that  outside  of  them 
there  has  never  been  any  science  or  any  art.  Thus  it 
seemed  to  the  sophists,  scholastics,  alchemists,  Cabalists, 
Talmudists,  and  to  our  scientific  science,  and  to  our  art 
for  art's  sake. 


XXXVI. 

"  But  science  and  art !  You  deny  science  and  art,  that 
is,  what  humanity  lives  by."  They  do  not  exactly  offer 
this  objection  to  me,  but  always  use  this  method  in  order 
to  reject  my  arguments,  without  analyzing  them. 

"  He  denies  science  and  art,  —  he  wants  to  bring  people 
back  to  that  savage  state,  —  so  what  use  is  there  of 
listening  to  him  or  speaking  with  him  ? " 

But  that  is  not  true.  I  am  not  only  far  from  denying 
science,  that  is,  the  rational  human  activity,  and  art, — 
the  expression  of  this  rational  activity,  but  in  the  name 
of  this  rational  activity  and  its  expressions  do  I  say  what 
I  do ;  only  in  order  that  humanity  may  have  a  chance  to 
get  out  of  that  savage  state  into  which  it  is  rapidly  fall- 
ing, thanks  to  the  false  teaching  of  our  time,  do  I  speak 
as  I  do. 

Science  and  art  are  as  indispensable  for  men  as  food, 
and  drink,  and  raiment,  and  even  more  indispensable  than 
these ;  but  they  do  not  become  such  because  we  decide 
that  what  we  call  science  and  art  is  indispensable,  but 
because  it  is  really  indispensable  to  men. 

If  they  should  prepare  hay  for  the  physical  food  of 
men,  my  conviction  that  hay  is  a  food  for  men  will  not 
make  the  hay  be  a  food  for  men.  I  cannot  say :  "  Why 
do  you  not  eat  hay,  since  it  is  an  indispensable  food  ? " 
It  may  happen  that  what  is  offered  by  me  is  no  food. 

Precisely  the  same  has  happened  with  science  and  art. 
But  we  imagine  that  if  to  a  Greek  word  we  shall  add  the 
word  "  logy  "  and  call  it  science,  it  will  really  be  a  sci- 
ence ;  and  if  some  abominable  work,  as  the  painting  of 

272 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  273 

nude  women,  shall  be  called  by  a  Greek  word,  and  we 
shall  say  that  it  is  art,  it  will  really  be  art.  But  no  mat- 
ter how  much  we  say  this,  the  thing  with  which  we  busy 
ourselves,  counting  bugs  and  investigating  the  chemical 
composition  of  the  milky  way,  drawing  nymphs  and  his- 
torical pictures,  composing  stories  and  symphonies,  our 
thing  will  become  neither  science  nor  art  so  long  as  it 
is  not  gladly  accepted  by  those  people  for  whom  it  is 
being  done.     But  so  far  it  is  not  being  accepted. 

If  only  one  class  of  men  were  permitted  to  produce 
food,  and  all  the  others  were  forbidden  to  do  that,  or 
were  placed  in  an  impossible  position  for  the  production 
of  food,  I  imagine  that  the  quality  of  the  food  would 
deteriorate.  If  people  who  had  a  monopoly  for  the  pro- 
duction of  food  were  Eussian  peasants,  there  would  exist 
no  other  food  than  black  bread,  kvas,  potatoes,  and  onions, 
nothing  but  what  they  like  and  what  pleases  them.  The 
same  would  happen  with  that  highest  activity  of  science 
and  of  art,  if  one  caste  appropriated  to  itself  the  monopoly, 
—  but  with  this  difference,  that  in  physical  food  there 
cannot  be  any  very  great  deviation  from  naturalness: 
though  bread  and  onions  are  not  very  palatable  food, 
still  they  are  edible ;  but  in  the  spiritual  food  there  can 
be  the  greatest  deviations,  and  some  people  can  for  a  long 
time  exist  on  useless,  or  even  harmful,  poisonous  spiritual 
food,  and  can  slowly  kill  themselves  with  opium  or  alco- 
hol, and  offer  the  same  food  to  the  masses. 

It  is  this  that  has  happened  with  us.  And  it  has 
happened  because  the  position  of  the  men  of  science  and 
of  art  is  privileged,  because  science  and  art  in  our  world 
are  not  the  rational  activity  of  all  humanity  without 
exception,  which  secretes  its  best  forces  in  order  to  serve 
science  and  art,  but  the  activity  of  a  small  circle  of  men 
having  a  monopoly  of  these  occupations  and  calling 
themselves  men  of  science  and  of  art,  and  so  having 
perverted  the  very  concepts  of  science  and  of  art,  and 


274  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

having  lost  the  meaning  of  their  calling,  and  busy  amus- 
ing and  saving  from  torturing  ennui  their  small  circle  of 
drones. 

Ever  since  men  have  existed,  they  have  always  had 
science  in  its  simplest  and  broadest  sense.  Science,  in 
the  sense  of  all  the  knowledge  of  humanity,  has  always 
been  and  always  will  be,  and  without  it  life  is  unthink- 
able: there  is  no  need  of  attacking  or  of  defending  it. 
But  the  point  is  that  the  sphere  of  this  knowledge  is  so 
varied,  and  there  enter  into  it  so  many  various  branches 
of  knowledge,  —  from  the  knowledge  of  how  to  mine  iron 
to  the  knowledge  about  the  motion  of  the  luminaries,  — 
that  a  man  is  lost  in  these  various  branches  of  knowledge, 
if  he  has  no  guiding  thread  by  which  he  can  decide  which  • 
of  all  the  branches  of  knowledge  is  most  important  and 
which  least  important  for  him. 

And  so  the  highest  wisdom  of  men  has  always  con- 
sisted in  finding  that  guiding  thread  along  which  is  to 
be  located  the  knowledge  of  men:  which  is  first,  and 
which  of  less  importance. 

And  this  human  knowledge,  which  guides  all  the  other 
knowledge,  has  always  been  called  science  in  the  narrower 
sense.  Such  science  has,  until  our  own  time,  always  ex- 
isted in  those  human  societies  which  have  emerged  from 
the  original  savage  state. 

Ever  since  humanity  has  existed,  there  have  always, 
among  all  nations,  appeared  teachers  who  composed 
science  in  its  narrower  sense,  the  science  as  to  what  is 
most  important  for  men  to  know.  This  science  has 
always  had  for  its  object  the  knowledge  of  what  the 
purpose,  and  so  the  true  good,  of  each  man  and  all  men 
is.  This  science  has  served  as  a  guiding  thread  in  the 
definition  of  the  meaning  of  all  other  knowledge  and  in 
its  expression,  —  art. 

Those  branches  of  knowledge  and  those  arts  which 
have  cooperated  with  and  approached  most  the  fundamen- 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  DO  THEN  ?       275 

tal  science  about  the  purpose  and  good  of  all  men  have 
stood  highest  in  public  opinion,  and  vice  versa. 

Such  was  the  science  of  Confucius,  Buddha,  Moses, 
Socrates,  Christ,  Mohammed,  the  science  as  it  has  been 
understood  by  all  men,  with  the  exception  of  the  men  of 
our  circle  of  so-called  cultured  people. 

Such  a  science  has  not  only  always  occupied  a  leading 
place,  but  has  been  the  one  science  from  which  the  mean- 
ing of  all  others  has  been  determined. 

And  this  was  not  at  all  the  case  because,  as  the  so- 
called  learned  men  of  our  time  think,  the  cheats,  priests, 
and  teachers  of  this  science  gave  it  such  a  significance, 
but  because,  indeed,  as  anybody  may  find  out  by  his 
inner  experience,  without  the  science  of  that  wherein  lies 
the  destiny  and  good  of  man  there  can  be  no  estimation 
and  no  choice  of  the  sciences  and  arts. 

And  so  there  cannot  even  be  any  study  of  the  sciences, 
for  there  is  an  endless  number  of  subjects  for  the  sciences  ; 
I  underline  the  word  "  endless,"  because  I  mean  it  in  its 
exact  sense. 

Without  the  knowledge  of  that  wherein  lies  the  destiny 
and  the  good  of  men,  all  the  other  sciences  and  arts  be- 
come, as  indeed  they  are  with  us,  an  idle  and  harmful 
plaything.  Humanity  has  hved,  and  it  has  never  lived 
without  the  science  of  that  wherein  is  the  destiny  and 
the  good  of  men.  It  is  true  that  the  science  of  the  good 
of  men  seems  to  a  superficial  observer  to  be  different  with 
the  Buddhists,  Brahmins,  Jews,  Christians,  Confucianists, 
Taoists  (though  it  is  enough  for  one  to  look  more  carefully 
at  these  teachings  in  order  to  see  their  identical  essence), 
but  wherever  we  know  men  who  have  come  out  of 
their  savage  state,  we  find  this  science,  and  suddenly  it 
turns  out  that  the  men  of  our  time  have  decided  that  this 
very  science,  which  heretofore  was  a  guide  to  all  human 
knowledge,  is  in  the  way  of  everything. 

People  put  up  buildings,  and  one  builder  makes  one 


276  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

calculation,  another  —  another,  and  a  third  —  a  third. 
The  calculations  vary  somewhat,  but  they  are  correct,  so 
that  each  of  them  sees  that  if  everything  shall  be  done 
according  to  the  calculation,  the  building  will  be  buUt. 

Such  builders  are  Confucius,  Buddha,  Moses,  Christ. 

Suddenly  people  come  and  affirm  that  the  main  thing 
is  not  to  have  any  calculation,  but  to  build  everything  at 
random,  trusting  to  the  eyes.  And  this  "  at  random  " 
these  people  call  a  most  exact  science,  just  as  the  Pope  is 
called  most  holy.  People  deny  every  science,  the  very 
essence  of  science,  —  the  determination  of  that  wherein 
lies  the  destiny  and  the  good  of  men,  —  and  this  denial 
they  call  science.  Ever  since  men  have  existed,  there 
have  bred  among  them  great  minds  which,  in  the  struggle 
with  the  demands  of  reason  and  of  conscience,  have  asked 
themselves  in  what  consists  the  destiny  and  the  good  not 
of  themselves  alone,  but  also  of  every  man. 

"What  does  the  force  which  has  produced  me  and 
which  guides  me  want  of  me  and  of  every  other  man  ? 
And  what  must  I  do  in  order  to  satisfy  the  demands  of 
the  personal  and  of  the  common  good,  which  are  inherent 
in  me  ? " 

They  asked  themselves :  "  I  am  a  whole  and  a  part  of 
something  immeasurable,  something  infinite :  what  are 
my  relations  to  similar  parts,  —  to  men,  —  and  to  the 
whole  ? " 

And  from  the  voice  of  conscience,  and  from  reason, 
and  from  the  consideration  of  what  those  who  have  lived 
before  them  and  their  contemporaries  have  told  them, 
those  who  have  given  themselves  these  questions,  these 
great  teachers,  deduce  their  teachings,  which  are  simple, 
clear,  comprehensible  to  all  men,  and  always  such  as 
could  be  fulfilled. 

Such  men  were  of  the  first,  the  second,  the  third,  and 
the  very  last  magnitude.     Of  such  people  the  world  is  full. 

All  living  men  put  to  themselves  the  question :  "  How 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  277 

shall  I  harmonize  my  demands  for  the  good  of  my 
personal  life  with  my  conscience  and  my  reason,  which 
demand  the  common  good  of  men  ? "  And  from  this 
common  labour  there  are  slowly,  but  uninterruptedly, 
worked  out  new  forms  of  life,  which  are  nearer  to  the 
demands  of  reason  and  of  conscience. 

Suddenly  there  appears  a  new  caste  of  men,  who  say : 
«  All  this  is  nonsense,  and  has  to  be  given  up."  Such  is 
the  deductive  method  of  reasoning  (no  one  has  ever  been 
able  to  comprehend  wherein  the  difference  is  between 
the  deductive  and  the  inductive  methods),  such  are  the 
methods  of  the  theological  and  the  metaphysical  periods. 
"Everything  which  men  reveal  through  their  inner  ex- 
perience and  communicate  to  one  another  concerning  the 
cognition  of  the  law  of  their  life  "  (of  the  functional  activ- 
ity, as  they  say  in  their  jargon),  "  everything  which  the 
greatest  minds  of  humanity  have  done  on  this  path  since 
the  beginning  of  the  world,  —  all  that  is  nonsense  and  of 
no  consequence." 

According  to  this  new  teaching  it  turns  out  like  this : 
you  are  a  cell  of  an  organism,  and  the  problem  of  your 
rational  activity  consists  in  determining  your  functional 
activity ;  and  in  order  to  determine  this  functional  activ- 
ity of  yours,  you  need  only  observe  outside  of  yourself. 
The  fact  that  you  are  a  thinking,  suffering,  talking,  com- 
prehending cell,  and  that,  therefore,  you  can  ask  another 
similar  talking  cell  whether  it  suffers,  rejoices,  and  feels 
like  you,  and  thus  verify  your  own  experience ;  that  you 
are  able  to  , utilize  that  which  suffering,  reasoning,  and 
talking  cells  who  have  lived  before  you  have  recorded; 
that  you  have  millions  of  cells  which  confirm  your  obser- 
vations by  .their  agreement  with  the  ceUs  which  have 
recorded  their  observations ;  that,  above  all,  you  yourself 
are  living  cells  which  by  their  immediate  inner  experience 
recognize  the  regularity  or  irregularity  of  their  functional 
activities,  —  all  that  has  no  meaning,  all  that  is  a  bad, 


278  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

a  false  method.  The  true,  the  scientific  method  is  like 
this :  if  you  want  to  know  wherein  consists  your  func- 
tional activity,  that  is,  wherein  is  your  destiny  and  your 
good,  and  the  destiny  and  the  good  of  all  humanity  and 
of  all  the  world,  you  must  first  of  all  stop  Hstening  to  the 
voice  and  to  the  demand  of  your  conscience  and  of  your 
reason,  which  make  themselves  known  in  you  and  in 
your  like ;  you  must  stop  believing  in  all  that  the  great 
teachers  of  humanity  have  said  about  their  reason  and 
their  conscience,  must  consider  all  that  nonsense,  and  be- 
gin anew.  And  in  order  to  understand  everything  from 
the  beginning,  you  must  look  through  a  microscope  at  the 
motion  of  the  amoebas  and  the  cells  in  rain-worms,  or, 
more  comfortably  still,  you  must  believe  in  everything 
which  men  with  the  diploma  of  infallibility  will  tell  you 
about  these  things.  And  looking  at  the  motion  of  these 
amoebas  and  cells,  or  reading  about  what  others  have  seen, 
you  must  ascribe  to  these  cells  their  human  feelings  and 
calculations  as  to  what  they  wish,  whither  they  tend, 
what  they  reflect  and  calculate  on,  and  what  they  are 
used  to ;  and.  from  these  observations  (in  which  every 
word  is  an  error  of  thought  or  of  expression)  judge  by 
analogy  what  you  are,  what  your  destiny  is,  and  in  what 
lies  your  good  and  that  of  other  similar  cells.  In  order 
to  understand  yourself  you  must  study  not  only  the  rain- 
worm, which  you  see,  but  also  the  microscopic  beings, 
which  you  almost  do  not  see,  and  the  transformations 
from  one  being  into  another,  which  no  man  has  ever  seen, 
and  you  certainly  will  never  see. 

'  The  same  is  true  of  art.  Where  there  has  been  true 
science,  art  has  always  been  an  expression  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  man's  destiny  and  good.  Ever  sinqe  men  have 
existed  they  have  out  of  the  whole  activity  of  the  expres- 
sions of  every  kind  of  knowledge  extracted  the  chief 
expression,  the  knowledge  of  the  destiny  and  the  good, 
and  the  expression  of  this  knowledge  was  art  in  its  nar- 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  279 

row  sense.  Ever  since  there  have  been  men,  there  have 
been  those  who  are  particularly  sensitive  and  responsive 
to  the  teaching  about  the  good  and  the  destiny  of  man, 
and  who  on  harps  and  timbrels,  in  representations  and  in 
words,  have  expressed  their  human  struggle  with  the  de- 
ceptions which  drew  them  away  from  their  destiny,  their 
sufferings  in  this  struggle,  their  hopes  in  the  triumph  of 
goodness,  their  despairs  on  account  of  the  triumph  of  evil, 
and  their  raptures  at  the  consciousness  of  this  approaching 
good. 

Ever  since  there  have  been  men,  true  art,  the  one 
which  has  been  highly  valued  by  men,  has  had  no  mean- 
ing except  as  an  expression  about  the  destiny  and  the 
good  of  man. 

At  all  times,  and  down  to  our  day,  art  has  served  the 
teaching  about  life,  what  later  was  called  religion,  and 
only  then  is  it  what  is  so  highly  valued  by  men.  But  at 
the  same  time  that  the  place  of  the  science  about  the 
destiny  and  the  good  was  occupied  by  the  science  about 
everything  that  might  come  to  one's  mind,  science  lost 
its  meaning  and  significance,  and  the  true  science  was 
contemptuously  called  religion,  and  at  the  same  time 
there  disappeared  art  as  an  important  human  activity. 

So  long  as  there  was  a  church,  as  a  teaching  about  the 
destiny  and  the  good,  art  served  the  church  and  was 
the  true  art ;  but  ever  since  art  has  left  the  church  and 
begun  to  serve  science,  while  science  serves  anything  that 
may  occur  to  it,  art  has  lost  its  meaning  and,  in  spite  of 
the  assertion  of  the  rights,  based  on  ancient  memory,  and 
of  the  insipid  claim,  which  only  proves  the  loss  of  its 
calling,  that  art  serves  art,  it  has  become  a  trade  which 
furnishes  men  with  what  is  pleasing,  and  inevitably 
blends  with  the  choreographic,  culinary,  tonsorial,  and 
cosmetic  arts,  the  producers  of  which  call  themselves 
artists  with  the  same  right  as  do  the  poets,  painters,  and 
musicians  of  our  time. 


280       WHAT  SHALL  WE  DO  THEN  ? 

You  look  back,  and  you  see :  in  the  course  of  thousands 
of  years  out  of  the  number  of  billions  of  people  are 
segregated  dozens  of  men  like  Confucius,  Buddha,  Solon, 
Socrates,  Solomon,  Homer,  Isaiah,  David.  Evidently  they 
occur  but  rarely  among  men,  although  at  that  time  they 
were  not  chosen  from  one  caste  only,  but  from  among  all 
men  ;  apparently  these  true  scholars,  artists,  producers  of 
spiritual  food,  are  rare,  and  humanity  has  had  good  reason 
to  value  them  so  highly.  Now  it  turns  out  that  all  these 
past  great  actors  of  science  and  of  art  are  no  longer  of 
any  use  to  us.  Now  the  scientific  and  artistic  actors  may, 
according  to  the  law  of  the  division  of  labour,  be  produced 
by  machine  work,  and  we  in  one  decade  can  produce  more 
great  men  of  science  and  of  art  than  were  bom  among  all 
men  since  the  creation  of  the  world. 

Now  there  is  a  guild  of  scholars  and  of  artists,  and  they 
manufacture  in  an  improved  manner  all  that  spiritual  food 
which  humanity  needs. 

And  they  have  produced  such  a  lot  of  it,  that  there  is 
no  need  even  of  mentioning  all  the  ancient  and  even  all 
the  more  modern  men  of  genius,  —  for  all  that  was  the 
activity  of  the  theological  and  the  metaphysical  periods ; 
all  that  has  to  be  wiped  out ;  the  real  rational  activity 
began  only  fifty  years  ago.  And  in  these  fifty  years  we 
have  manufactured  such  a  lot  of  great  men  that  there  are 
more  of  them  in  one  German  university  than  there  were 
before  in  the  whole  world ;  and  we  have  produced  such  a 
mass  of  sciences,  —  luckily  they  are  easily  produced  (all 
you  have  to  do  is  to  add  to  a  Greek  appellation  the  word 
"  logy,"  and  to  arrange  matters  according  to  given  speci- 
fications, and  the  science  is  all  fixed),  —  that  one  man  not 
only  cannot  know  them,  but  cannot  even  remember  the 
names  of  all  the  existing  sciences,  —  the  names  alone 
would  form  a  stout  dictionary,  and  they  produce  new 
sciences  every  day. 

They  have  produced  a  lot  of  them,  in  the  way  in  which 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  281 

a  Finnish  teacher  taught  the  children  of  a  proprietor  to 
talk  Finnish  instead  of  French.  They  have  taught  us 
beautifully  ;  but  the  one  trouble  is  that  none  but  us  under- 
stand a  thing  about  it,  and  that  the  others  consider  aU  this 
to  be  useless  bosh. 

However,  there  is  an  explanation  for  all  that:  the 
people  do  not  understand  the  whole  usefulness  of  the 
scientific  science,  because  they  are  under  the  influence 
of  the  theological  period  of  knowledge,  of  that  stupid 
period  when  the  whole  nation  of  the  Jews,  and  of  the 
Chinese,  and  of  the  Hindoos,  and  of  the  Greeks,  under- 
stood everything  which  their  great  teachers  told  them. 

But  no  matter  what  the  cause  of  it  may  be,  the  point 
is  that  the  sciences  and  the  arts  have  always  existed  with 
humanity,  and  that,  when  they  actually  existed,  they  were 
necessary  and  comprehensible  to  all  men. 

We  are  doing  things  which  we  call  sciences  and  arts, 
and  it  turns  out  that  what  we  do  we  have  no  right  to  call 
sciences  and  arts. 


XXXVII. 

"  But  you  are  only  giving  a  different,  more  narrow 
definition  of  science  and  of  art,  which  is  not  in  conformity 
with  science,"  I  am  told,  "  but  this  does  not  exclude 
them,  for  there  is  still  left  the  scientific  and  the  artis- 
tic activity  of  a  Galileo,  Bruno,  Homer,  Michelangelo,  Beet- 
hoven, Wagner,  and  all  the  scholars  and  artists  of  lesser 
magnitudes,  who  have  devoted  all  their  lives  to  the  service 
of  science  and  of  art." 

This  they  generally  say  in  their  attempt  to  establish 
the  succession,  which  they  in  other  cases  deny,  between 
the  activity  of  the  former  scholars  and  artists  and  the 
present,  and  also  in  their  attempt  at  forgetting  that 
special,  new  principle  of  the  division  of  labour  on  the 
basis  of  which  science  and  the  arts  now  occupy  their 
privileged  position. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  impossible  to  establish  a  succes- 
sion between  the  present  and  the  former  representative 
men ;  as  the  holy  life  of  the  first  Christians  has  nothing 
in  common  with  the  life  of  the  Popes,  so  the  activity  of 
a  Galileo,  a  Shakespeare,  a  Beethoven,  has  nothing  in 
common  with  the  activity  of  a  Tyndal,  a  Hugo,  a  Wagner. 
As  the  holy  fathers  would  have  rejected  any  kinship  with 
the  Popes,  so  the  ancient  men  of  science  would  have 
rejected  any  kinship  with  the  men  of  the  present. 

In  the  second  place,  thanks  to  the  meaning  which  the 
sciences  and  arts  now  ascribe  to  themselves,  we  have  a 
very  clear  standard,  given  by  science  itself,  by  means  of 
which  we  are  able  to  determine  their  correspondence 
or  lack  of  correspondence,  to  their  purpose ;  and  thus  we 

282 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  283 

are  able,  not  boldly,  but  by  the  given  standard,  to  deter- 
mine whether  the  activity  which  calls  itself  science  and 
art  has  any  grounds,  or  not,  to  call  itself  by  that  name. 

When  the  Egyptian  or  Greek  priests  produced  their 
mysteries  which  no  one  understood,  and  said  of  these  mys- 
teries that  in  them  lay  all  science  and  art,  I  was  not  able 
on  the  basis  of  a  benefit  conferred  by  them  on  the  people 
to  verify  the  reality  of  their  science,  because  science, 
according  to  their  assertion,  was  supernatural ;  but  now 
we  aU  have  a  very  clear  and  simple  standard,  which 
excludes  the  supernatural :  science  and  art  promise  to  do 
the  brain  activity  of  humanity  for  the  good  of  society 
or  of  all  humanity.  And  so  we  have  the  right  to  call 
only  such  activity  science  and  art  as  will  have  this  aim 
and  will  attain  it. 

And  so,  no  matter  what  the  scholars  and  artists  may 
call  themselves,  who  invent  the  theory  of  criminal,  polit- 
ical, and  international  rights,  who  invent  new  guns  and 
explosives,  who  compose  salacious  operas  and  operettas, 
or  just  as  salacious  novels,  we  have  no  right  to  call  all 
this  activity  an  activity  of  science  and  of  art,  since  this 
activity  has  not  for  its  aim  the  good  of  societies  or  of 
humanity,  but,  on  the  contrary,  is  directed  to  the  harm 
of  men.  All  this  is,  consequently,  neither  science  nor 
art.  Similarly,  no  matter  what  the  scholars  may  call 
themselves,  who  in  the  simplicity  of  their  hearts  are 
all  their  lives  busy  investigating  microscopic  animals  and 
telescopic  and  spectral  phenomena,  or  what  the  artists 
may  call  themselves,  who,  after  a  careful  study  of  the 
monuments  of  antiquity,  are  busy  preparing  historical 
novels,  pictures,  symphonies,  and  pretty  verses,  —  all  these 
men,  in  spite  of  their  zeal,  cannot,  according  to  the  sci- 
entific definition  itself,  be  called  men  of  science  and  of 
art,  in  the  first  place,  because  their  activity  of  science 
for  the  sake  of  science,  and  of  art  for  the  sake  of  art,  has 
not  the  good  for  its  aim  ;  and  in  the  second  place,  because 


284  WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

we  do  not  see  the  consequences  of  this  activity  for  the 
good  of  society  and  of  humanity.  But  the  fact  that  from 
their  activity  there  sometimes  accrues  something  useful 
and  agreeable  for  certain  people  does  by  no  means  give 
us  the  right,  again  according  to  their  own  scientific 
definition,  to  regard  them  as  men  of  science  and  of  art. 

Similarly,  no  matter  what  men  may  call  themselves 
who  invent  applications  of  electricity  to  lighting,  heating, 
and  motion,  or  new  chemical  combinations,  which  produce 
dynamite  or  beautiful  dyes ;  or  who  piay  correctly  Beet- 
hoven's symphonies ;  or  who  act,  or  paint  beautiful  por- 
traits, genre  pictures,  landscapes  ;  or  who  write  interesting 
novels,  the  aim  of  which  is  only  to  offer  diversion  to  the 
rich  in  their  ennui,  —  the  activity  of  these  men  cannot 
be  called  science  or  art,  because  it  is  not  directed,  like 
the  brain  activity  in  the  organism,  toward  the  good  of  the 
whole,  but  is  guided  only  by  personal  advantage,  privi- 
leges, money,  received  for  the  invention  and  production 
of  so-called  art,  and  so  can  in  no  way  be  separated  from 
any  other  selfish,  personal  activity  which  adds  pleasure 
to  life,  such  as  are  the  activities  of  restaurant-keepers, 
and  jockeys,  and  modistes,  and  prostitutes,  and  so  forth. 
The  activities  of  any  of  these  do  not  fit  in  with  the  defini- 
tion of  science  and  of  art,  which  on  the  basis  of  the 
division  of  labour  promise  to  serve  the  good  of  all  hu- 
manity or  of  society. 

The  definition  of  science  and  of  art,  as  made  by  science, 
is  quite  correct,  but  unfortunately  the  activity  of  modem 
sciences  and  arts  does  not  fit  in  with  it.  Some  of  them 
do  outright  what  is  harmful,  others  what  is  useless,  and 
others  again  what  is  insignificant,  and  good  only  for  the 
rich. 

All  of  them  may,  indeed,  be  good  men,  but  they  do  not 
fulfil  what,  according  to  their  own  definition,  they  under- 
took to  do,  and  so  they  have  as  little  right  to  regard 
themselves  as  men  of  science  and  of  art  as  have  the 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  285 

modern  clergy  who,  by  not  fulfilling  the  obligations  taken 
upon  themselves,  have  lost  the  right  to  recognize  them- 
selves as  carriers  and  teachers  of  divine  truth. 

And  it  is  comprehensible  why  the  men  of  modern 
science  and  art  have  not  fulfilled,  and  cannot  fulfil,  their 
calling.  They  do  not  fulfil  it,  because  of  their  obligations 
they  have  made  rights. 

The  scientific  and  artistic  activity,  in  its  real  meaning, 
is  fruitful  only  when  it  knows  no  rights,  but  only  obliga- 
tions. It  is  only  because  it  is  always  such,  —  because  its 
property  is  to  be  self-sacrificing,  —  that  humanity  values 
it  so  highly. 

If  men  are  really  called  to  serve  others  by  means  of 
spiritual  labour,  they  will  always  suffer  in  fulfilling  this 
ministration,  because  only  in  suffering,  as  in  childbirth,  is 
the  spiritual  world  bom. 

Self-renunciation  and  suffering  will  be  thie  share  of  the 
thinker  and  the  artist,  because  his  aim  is  the  good  of  men. 
Men  are  unhappy  :  they  suffer,  they  perish.  There  is  no 
time  for  waiting  and  taking  things  coolly. 

The  thinker  and  the  artist  will  never  sit  on  Olympian 
heights,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  think ;  he  will  always, 
eternally,  be  agitated  and  disturbed ;  he  might  have 
solved  and  uttered  that  which  would  give  the  good  to 
men  and  would  free  them  from  suffering,  but  he  did  not 
solve  and  utter  this,  and  to-morrow  it  may  be  too  late : 
he  may  be  dead. 

Not  he  will  be  a  thinker  and  an  artist  who  is  educated 
in  an  establishment  where  they  make  a  scholar  and  an 
artist  (what  they  really  make  there  is  a  ruiner  of  science 
and  of  art),  and  receives  a  diploma  and  a  competency, 
but  he  who  would  be  glad  to  refrain  from  thinking  and 
expressing  what  is  implanted  in  his  soul,  and  yet  is  un- 
able to  refrain  from  doing  that  toward  which  he  is  drawn 
by  two  insuperable  forces,  —  by  his  inner  necessity  and 
by  the  demands  of  men. 


286  WHAT   SHALL   WE  DO  THEN? 

There  is  no  such  a  thing  as  a  smooth,  easy-going,  and 
self-satisfied  thinker  and  artist. 

The  spiritual  activity  and  its  expression,  which  are 
indeed  necessary  for  others,  are  man's  most  grievous  call- 
ing, his  cross,  as  it  is  expressed  in  the  GospeL  The  only 
undoubted  sign  of  the  presence  of  the  calling  is  self- 
renunciation,  self-sacrifice  for  the  purpose  of  manifesting 
the  force  which  is  implanted  in  man  for  the  benefit  of 
other  men. 

It  is  possible  to  teach  how  many  bugs  there  are  in  the 
world,  and  to  observe  the  spots  in  the  sun,  and  to  write 
novels  or  an  opera,  without  experiencing  any  sufifering  ; 
but  it  is  impossible  without  renunciation  to  teach  peo- 
ple their  good,  which  is  all  only  in  self-renunciation  and 
serving  others,  and  strongly  to  express  this  teaching. 

There  was  a  church  so  long  as  the  teachers  endured  and 
suffered,  but  the  moment  they  began  to  grow  fat  their 
teaching  activity  came  to  an  end. 

"  There  were  golden  priests  and  wooden  bowls,  now  the 
bowls  have  become  of  gold,  and  the  priests  are  wooden," 
say  the  people. 

There  was  good  reason  why  Christ  died  on  the  cross, 
and  good  reason  why  the  sacrifice  of  suffering  conquers 
everything. 

But  our  men,  and  science  and  art,  are  made  secure  and 
have  diplomas,  and  all  the  care  they  have  is  how  to  make 
themselves  more  secure  still,  that  is,  how  to  make  im- 
possible the  ministration  to  men. 

True  science  and  true  art  have  two  undoubted  signs, 
—  the  first,  an  inward  sign,  is  this,  that  the  servant  of 
science  and  of  art  will  carry  out  his  calling  not  for  his 
advantage,  but  with  self-renunciation,  and  the  second,  an 
external  one,  is  this,  that  its  productions  are  comprehen- 
sible to  all  men  whose  good  he  has  in  view. 

No  matter  in  what  men  may  take  their  purpose  and 
good  to  lie,  science  will  be  the  teaching  of  this  purpose 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  287 

and  good,  and  art  —  the  expression  of  this  teaching.  The 
laws  of  Solon  and  of  Confucius  are  science ;  the  teaching 
of  Moses  and  of  Christ  are  science;  the  buildings  in 
Athens,  David's  psalms,  the  masses,  are  art ;  but  the  study 
of  the  bodies  in  the  fourth  dimension  and  of  the  tables  of 
chemical  combinations,  and  so  forth,  has  never  been  and 
never  will  be  science.  The  place  of  true  science  and  of 
the  arts  is  in  modern  times  taken  by  theology  and  the 
juridical  sciences ;  the  place  of  true  art  is  taken  by  eccle- 
siastic and  governmental  ceremonies,  in  which  all  alike 
do  not  believe,  and  on  which  all  alike  fail  to  look  seri- 
ously ;  but  that  which  with  us  is  called  science  and  art  is 
the  product  of  an  idle  mind  and  of  idle  feehug,  having  for 
its  aim  the  tickling  of  just  such  idle  minds  and  feelings, 
incomprehensible  and  meaningless  for  the  masses,  because 
it  has  not  their  good  in  view. 

As  far  back  as  we  know  the  Hfe  of  men,  we  always  and 
everywhere  find  the  reigning  teaching,  which  falsely  calls 
itself  science  and  which  does  not  disclose  the  meaning  of 
life  to  men,  but  obscures  it.  Thus  it  was  with  the  Egyp- 
tians, with  the  Hindoos,  with  the  Chinese,  and  partly  with 
the  Greeks  (sophists),  then  with  the  mystics,  gnostics, 
Cabalists ;  in  the  Middle  Ages  with  the  theologians, 
scholastics,  alchemists,  and  so  on  up  to  our  time. 

What  a  special  piece  of  fortune  it  is  for  us  to  be  living 
in  such  a  particular  time  when  that  mental  activity  which 
calls  itself  science  is  not  only  not  in  error,  but  also,  as  we 
are  assured,  in  an  unusually  flourishing  state !  Is  not 
this  special  piece  of  good  fortune  due  to  this,  that  man 
cannot  and  does  not  wish  to  see  his  monstrousness  ?  Why 
is  there  nothing  left  of  the  sciences  of  the  theologians 
and  Cabalists  but  words,  while  we  are  so  fortunate  ? 

The  signs  are  certainly  the  same :  there  is  the  same 
self -contentment  and  blind  assurance  that  we,  and  nobody 
else,  are  on  the  right  path,  and  that  the  real  thing  begins 
with  us  only.     There  is  the  same  expectation  that  very, 


288  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

very  shortly  we  shall  discover  something  unusual,  and  the 
same  chief  sign  which  betrays  our  error,  —  our  whole 
wisdom  is  left  with  us,  and  the  masses  do  not  understand, 
nor  receive,  nor  need  it.  Our  situation  is  very  hard,  but 
why  should  we  not  look  straight  at  it  ? 

It  is  time  to  bethink  and  overhaul  ourselves. 

We  are  certainly  nothing  but  scribes  and  Pharisees, 
who  have  seated  ourselves  on  Moses'  seat,  and  who  have 
taken  the  keys  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  who 
ourselves  do  not  enter  and  do  not  admit  others.  We,  the 
priests  of  science  and  of  art,  are  the  most  wretched  de- 
ceivers, who  have  a  great  deal  less  right  to  our  situation 
than  the  most  cunning  and  corrupt  of  priests.  We  have 
not  the  slightest  justification  for  our  privileged  condition : 
we  have  seized  this  place  through  rascahty,  and  we  hold 
it  through  deception. 

The  priests,  the  clergy,  ours  or  the  Cathohc,  no  matter 
how  corrupt  they  have  been,  have  had  a  right  to  their 
position,  —  they  have  been  saying  that  they  teach  men 
life  and  salvation.  But  we  have  undermined  the  clergy 
and  have  proved  to  people  that  it  deceives  them,  and 
have  taken  its  place;  we  do  not  teach  Hfe  to  men, 
and  even  recognize  that  there  is  no  need  of  learning  this ; 
we  suck  up  the  juices  of  the  masses  and  for  this  we  teach 
our  children  the  same  Talmud,  -^  Greek  and  Latin  gram- 
mar,—  in  order  that  they  may  be  able  to  continue  the 
same  life  of  a  parasite  which  we  are  leading. 

We  say  that  there  used  to  be  castes,  but  that  there  are 
none  now.  But  what  does  this  mean,  that  some  people 
and  their  children  work,  while  other  people  and  their 
children  do  not  work  ?  Take  a  Hindoo,  who  does  not 
know  our  language,  and  show  him  the  life  of  several 
generations  in  Europe  and  in  Eussia,  and  he  will  recog- 
nize the  same  two  chief,  distinct  castes  of  workers  and 
non-workers  which  he  has  in  his  own  country.  As  in  his 
country,  the  right  not  to  work  is  given  to  us  by  a  special 


WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  289 

sanctification  which  we  call  science  and  art,  or,  in  general, 
education. 

It  is  this  education  and  all  the  perversion  of  the  mind, 
which  is  connected  with  it,  that  has  brought  us  to  that 
remarkable  madness  in  consequence  of  which  we  do  not 
see  what  is  so  clear  and  unquestionable. 

We  devour  the  human  lives  of  our  brothers  and  con- 
sider  ourselves  Christian,  humane,  cultured,  and  perfectly 
righteous  men. 


xxxvni 

So  what  is  to  be  done  ?     What  shall  we  do  then  ? 

This  question,  which  includes  the  recognition  that  our 
life  is  bad  and  irregular,  and,  at  the  same  time,  as  it  were, 
the  assertion  that  it  is  impossible  to  change  all  this,  I 
have  heard  on  all  sides,  and  so  I  have  chosen  this  ques- 
tion for  the  title  of  this  whole  writing. 

I  have  described  my  sufferings,  my  searchings,  and  my 
solutions  of  this  question.  I  am  the  same  kind  of  a  man 
as  all  the  rest,  and  if  I  in  any  way  dififer  from  the 
average  man  of  our  circle,  I  differ  mainly  in  this,  that  I 
have  more  than  the  average  man  served  the  false  teach- 
ing of  the  world  and  have  been  in  collusion  with  it,  have 
received  more  applause  from  the  people  of  the  reigning 
teaching,  and  so  have  more  than  others  become  corrupted 
and  strayed  from  my  path. 

And  so  I  think  that  the  solution  of  the  question  which 
I  have  found  for  myself  will  also  be  good  for  all  sincere 
people  who  put  the  same  question  to  themselves.  First 
of  all,  in  reply  to  the  question,  "What  to  do?"  I  an- 
swered myself :  "  Not  to  lie  to  others,  nor  to  oneself ; 
not  to  be  afraid  of  the  truth,  no  matter  where  it  may 
take  us."  We  all  know  what  it  means  to  lie  to  people, 
and  yet  we  never  stop  lying  from  morning  until  night : 
"  Not  at  home,"  when  I  am  at  home  ;  "  Very  glad,"  when 
I  am  not  at  all  glad ;  "  Most  respectfully,"  when  I  do  not 
at  all  respect ;  "  I  have  no  money,"  when  I  have  it,  and 
so  forth.  We  consider  a  lie  to  people,  especially  a  lie  of 
a  certain  kind,  a  bad  thing,  but  we  are  not  afraid  of  lying 
to  ourselves ;  and  yet  the  worst,  most  direct,  most  decep- 

290 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  291 

tive  lie  to  other  people  is  nothing  in  its  consequences  in 
comparison  with  the  lie  to  ourselves,  on  which  we  build 
our  life. 

It  is  this  he  which  we  must  not  tell,  in  order  that  we 
may  be  able  to  answer  the  question,  "  What  to  do  ? " 

How  can  I  answer  this  question,  when  everything  I 
do,  my  whole  life,  is  based  on  a  lie,  and  I  carefully  give 
out  this  lie  to  others  and  to  myself  as  the  truth  ?  Not  to 
lie  in  this  sense  means  not  to  be  afraid  of  the  truth,  not. 
to  invent  any  subterfuges,  and  not  to  accept  those  invented 
by  others  for  the  purpose  of  concealing  from  ourselves  the 
deductions  of  reason  and  of  conscience ;  not  to  be  afraid 
of  disagreeing  from  all  those  around  us,  and  to  remain  all 
alone  with  reason  and  conscience ;  not  to  be  afraid  of  the 
proposition  to  which  truth  will  lead  us,  being  fully  con- 
vinced that  the  proposition  to  which  truth  and  conscience 
will  lead  us,  no  matter  how  strange  it  may  be,  cannot  be 
worse  than  the  one  which  is  based  on  the  lie.  Not  to  He 
in  our  condition  of  privileged  people  of  the  mental  labour 
means  not  to  be  afraid  of  squaring  up  accounts.  "  May 
be  I  am  so  much  in  arrears  that  I  shall  never  balance  my 
accounts ; "  but,  no  matter  how  much  it  may  be,  it  is 
better  than  not  to  cast  the  accounts  at  all;  no  matter 
how  far  we  may  have  strayed  on  the  false  path,  it  is 
better  for  us  than  to  continue  to  walk  on  the  false  path. 
Lying  to  others  is  only  inexpedient. 

Every  affair  is  more  directly  and  more  briefly  solved  by 
truth  than  by  lies.  Lying  to  others  only  complicates 
matters  and  delays  the  solution;  but  a  lie  to  oneself, 
given  out  as  a  truth,  ruins  a  man's  whole  life. 

If  a  man,  having  strayed  on  a  false  path,  recognizes  it 
as  the  true  one,  every  step  of  his  on  his  path  removes 
him  from  his  goal ;  if  a  man,  who  for  a  long  time  walks 
on  this  false  path,  divines  himself  or  is  told  that  this  is  a 
false  path,  and  is  frightened  at  the  idea  of  how  far  he  has 
strayed  to  one  side,  and  tries  to  assure  himself  that  he 


292  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

will  in  some  way  come  out  on  the  road,  he  certainly 
never  will.  If  a  man  is  awed  by  truth  and,  seeing  it, 
does  not  acknowledge  it,  accepts  the  he  as  truth,  he  will 
never  know  what  he  has  to  do. 

We,  not  only  the  rich,  but  also  the  privileged,  the 
so-called  cultured  men,  have  strayed  so  far  on  the  false 
path  that  we  need  great  determination  or  very  great 
suffering  on  the  false  path  in  order  to  regain  our  senses 
and  recognize  the  lie  by  which  we  live. 

I  saw  the  lie  of  our  life,  thanks  to  those  sufferings  to 
which  the  false  path  brought  me ;  and  having  recognized 
the  falseness  of  the  path  on  which  I  was  standing,  I 
had  the  courage,  at  first  only  mentally,  to  go  whither 
reason  and  conscience  took  me,  without  reflection  as  to 
where  they  would  take  me  to.  I  was  rewarded  for  this 
courage.  All  the  complex,  dissociated,  confused,  mean- 
ingless phenomena  of  Ufe  which  surrounded  me  suddenly 
became  clear  to  me,  and  my  position  amidst  these  phe- 
nomena, strange  and  oppressive  to  me  before,  suddenly 
became  natural  and  Hght.  And  in  this  new  position  my 
activity  was  quite  precisely  defined :  it  was  by  no  means 
the  one  which  had  presented  itself  to  me  before,  but  a 
new,  much  calmer,  more  lovable,  and  more  joyous  activity. 
What  formerly  frightened  me  now  began  to  attract  me. 

And  so  I  think  that  he  who  sincerely  asks  himself, 
"  What  to  do  ? "  and,  answering  this  question,  does  not 
lie  to  himself,  but  proceeds  whither  his  reason  will  lead 
him,  has  already  solved  the  question.  If  only  he  shaU 
not  lie  to  himself,  he  will  find  where,  how,  and  what  to 
do.  The  one  thing  that  can  keep  him  from  finding  a  way 
out  is  the  false  high  opinion  which  he  has  of  his  con- 
dition. So  it  was  with  me,  and  so  another  answer  to 
the  question, "  What  to  do  ? "  resulting  from  the  first,  con- 
sisted for  me  in  repenting  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word, 
that  is,  in  completely  changing  the  valuation  of  my  con- 
dition and  of  my  activity ;  in  recognizing,  instead  of  the 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  293 

usefulness  and  seriousness  of  my  activity,  its  harm  and 
triviality;  in  recognizing,  instead  of  my  education,  my 
ignorance;  in  recognizing,  instead  of  my  goodness  and 
morality,  my  immorality  and  cruelty ;  in  recognizing, 
instead  of  my  exaltation,  my  baseness. 

I  say  that,  in  addition  to  not  lying  to  myself,  I  had  to 
repent  in  particular  because,  although  one  thing  results 
from  another,  the  false  conception  of  my  high  significance 
was  so  welded  with  me  that  so  long  as  I  did  not  sincerely 
repent,  and  did  not  renounce  the  false  valuation  which  I 
had  made  of  myself,  I  did  not  see  the  greater  part  of  the 
lie  which  I  was  telling  to  myself.  Only  when  I  repented, 
that  is,  stopped  looking  upon  myself  as  a  special  man, 
and  considered  myself  as  a  man  like  anybody  else,  my 
path  became  clear  to  me. 

Before  that  I  had  been  unable  to  answer  the  question, 
"  What  to  do  ? "  because  I  put  the  question  itself  incor- 
rectly. So  long  as  I  did  not  repent,  I  put  the  question 
like  this :  "  What  activity  shall  be  chosen  by  me,  a  man 
in  possession  of  the  culture  and  of  the  talents  which  I 
have  acquired  ?  How  can  I  with  this  culture  and  these 
talents  repay  what  I  have  been  taking  from  the  masses  ? " 

This  question  was  incorrectly  put,  because  it  included 
the  false  representation  that  I  was  not  just  such  a  man, 
but  a  special  kind  of  a  man,  called  to  serve  the  masses 
with  those  talents  and  that  culture  which  I  had  acquired 
in  a  practice  of  forty  years.  I  used  to  put  the  ques- 
tion to  myself,  but  in  reality  answered  it  by  determining 
in  advance  the  kind  of  agreeable  activity  with  which  I 
was  called  to  serve  men.  What  I  really  asked  myself  was 
this :  "  How  can  I,  such  a  fine  author,  who  have  acquired 
so  much  knowledge  and  so  many  talents,  use  them  for 
the  benefit  of  men  ? "  But  the  question  ought  to  have 
been  put  as  it  stood  for  a  learned  rabbi  who  had  finished 
his  course  in  the  Talmud  and  had  studied  the  number  of 
letters  in  all  the  sacred  writings  and  all  the  intricacies 


294  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

of  his  science.  The  question,  as  for  the  rabbi,  so  also  for 
me  ought  to  have  stood  as  follows :  What  must  I,  who, 
through  the  misfortune  of  my  conditions,  have  passed 
my  best  years  of  study  in  acquiring  the  French  language, 
the  playing  of  the  piano,  grammar,  geography,  juridical 
sciences,  verses,  novels,  philosophical  theories,  and  mili- 
tary exercises,  instead  of  becoming  accustomed  to  work,  — 
what  must  I,  who  have  passed  the  best  years  of  my  life 
in  idle  occupations  which  corrupt  the  soul,  do,  in  spite  of 
these  unfortunate  conditions  of  the  past,  in  order  to  pay 
back  to  those  people  who  have  fed  and  clothed  me  and 
even  now  continue  to  feed  and  clothe  me  ?  If  the  ques- 
tion had  stood  before  me  as  it  now  stands  before  me, 
after  I  have  repented,  namely,  what  I,  such  a  corrupt 
man,  must  do,  the  answer  would  have  been  easy :  I  must 
first  of  all  try  to  earn  an  honest  living,  that  is,  to  learn 
how  not  to  live  by  sitting  on  the  backs  of  others  and, 
while  learning  it  and  having  learned  it,  upon  every  occa- 
sion to  be  useful  to  people  with  my  hands,  and  feet,  and 
brain,  and  heart,  and  with  all  that  to  which  the  masses 
lay  any  claim. 

And  so  I  say  that  for  a  man  of  our  circle  it  is  not 
enough  to  refrain  from  lying  to  others  and  to  himself :  he 
must  also  repent,  —  scrape  off  the  pride  which  is  ingrained 
in  us  through  our  education,  refinement,  and  talents, 
—  and  recognize  himself  not  as  a  benefactor  of  the 
masses,  a  representative  man  who  does  not  refuse  to  share 
his  useful  acquisitions  with  the  masses,  but  as  an  abso- 
lutely guilty,  spoilt,  and  useless  man  who  desires  to  mend 
and  not  exactly  to  benefit  the  masses,  but  to  stop  offend- 
ing and  insulting  them. 

I  frequently  hear  the  questions  of  good  young  men  who 
sympathize  with  the  negative  part  of  my  writings  and  ask  : 
"Well,  so  what  must  I  do?  What  must  I  do,  having 
graduated  from  the  university  or  from  another  institution, 
in  order  that  I  may  be  useful  ? " 


WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO   THEN?  295 

The  young  people  ask  this  question,  but  in  the  depth 
of  their  hearts  they  have  long  ago  decided  that  the  educa- 
tion which  they  have  received  is  their  great  superiority, 
and  that  they  wish  to  serve  the  masses  even  by  their  su- 
periority ;  and  so  there  is  one  thing  which  they  certainly 
will  not  do,  and  that  is,  sincerely,  honestly,  and  critically 
inspect  that  which  they  call  their  education,  and  ask 
themselves  whether  that  which  they  call  education  repre- 
sents good  or  bad  qualities.  If  they  do  that,  they  will 
inevitably  be  led  to  the  necessity  of  renouncing  their 
education,  and  to  the  necessity  of  beginning  to  study 
anew,  and  that  is  the  one  necessary  thiug. 

They  are  absolutely  unable  to  solve  the  question  as  to 
what  to  do,  because  it  is  not  put  as  it  ought  to  be  put. 

The  question  ought  to  stand  like  this :  "  How  must  I, 
a  helpless,  useless  man,  who,  through  the  misfortune  of 
my  conditions,  have  wasted  the  best  years  of  study  in  the 
acquisition  of  the  scientific  Talmud,  which  corrupts  body 
and  soul,  correct  this  error  and  learn  to  serve  people?" 
But  it  stands  with  them  like  this :  "  How  can  I,  a  man 
who  has  acquired  so  many  fine  sciences,  be  useful  to  men 
by  means  of  these  fine  sciences  ? "  And  so  a  man  will 
never  answer  the  question,  "  What  to  do  ? "  until  he  stops 
lying  to  himself,  and  repents.  And  the  repentance  is  not 
terrible,  just  as  truth  is  not  terrible,  and  it  is  just  as  joy- 
ous and  as  fruitful.  One  needs  only  to  accept  truth 
as  a  whole  and  repent  in  full,  in  order  to  comprehend  that 
no  one  has,  nor  can  have,  any  rights,  privileges,  and  pre- 
rogatives in  matters  of  life,  and  that  there  is  no  end  and 
no  limit  to  duties,  and  that  man's  first  unquestionable 
duty  is  to  take  part  in  the  struggle  with  Nature  for  his 
own  life  and  for  that  of  other  men. 

It  is  this  consciousness  of  man's  duty  which  constitutes 
the  essence  of  the  third  answer  to  the  question,  "  What 
to  do?" 

I  trie^  not  t'O  lie  to  myself ;  I  tried  to  boil  away  what 


296  WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN? 

there  was  left  of  the  false  opinion  as  regards  my  educa- 
tion  and  talents,  and  to  repent ;  but  a  new  difficulty  arose 
on  the  path  of  the  solution  of  the  question,  "What  to 
do  1 "  There  were  so  many  things  that  it  was  necessary 
to  have  pointed  out  what  it  is  that  I  ought  to  do.  And 
the  answer  to  this  question  was  given  to  me  by  the  sin- 
cere repentance  of  the  evil  in  which  I  was  living.  "  What 
to  do  ?  What  indeed  is  to  be  done  ?  "  all  ask,  and  I,  too, 
asked  myself  so  long  as  I,  under  the  influence  of  the 
high  opinion  of  my  calling,  did  not  see  that  it  was  my 
foremost  and  most  unquestionable  business  to  feed,  clothe, 
warm  myself,  and  tend  on  myself,  and  in  the  same  things 
to  serve  others,  because  ever  since  the  world  has  existed 
this  has  been  the  first  and  most  unquestionable  duty  of 
every  man. 

In  this  one  affair  man  receives,  if  he  shares  it,  a  full 
gratification  of  the  bodily  and  the  spiritual  demands  of 
his  nature:  to  feed,  clothe,  guard  oneself  and  one's 
family  is  a  gratification  of  a  bodily  demand,  and  to  do 
the  same  for  other  people  is  a  gratification  of  a  spiritual 
demand. 

Every  other  activity  of  man  is  lawful  only  when  this 
foremost  necessity  is  satisfied. 

No  matter  in  what  a  man  may  think  his  calling  to  lie, 
whether  in  governing  people,  or  in  defending  his  com- 
patriots, or  in  celebrating  divine  services,  or  in  teaching 
others,  or  in  inventing  means  for  the  increase  of  the 
pleasures  of  life,  or  in  discovering  new  laws  of  the  uni- 
verse, or  in  incarnating  eternal  truths  in  artistic  forms,  — 
a  sensible  man  will  always  find  his  first  and  most  un- 
questionable dutv  to  lie  in  his  participation  in  the  struggle 
with  Nature,  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  his  own  life 
and  that  of  other  men.  This  duty  will  always  be  the 
first,  if  for  no  other  reason  because  people  need  their  life 
most,  and  so,  in  order  to  defend  and  instruct  men  and 
make  their  lives  most  agreeable,  it  is  necessary  to  pre- 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  297 

serve  life  itself,  whereas  my  non-participation  in  the 
struggle,  the  absorption  of  other  men's  labours,  is  a 
destruction  of  other  men's  lives. 

And  so  it  is  impossible  and  irrational  to  serve  the  lives 
of  men  by  destroying  them. 

The  duty  of  the  struggle  with  Nature  for  the  purpose 
of  obtaining  the  means  of  subsistence  will  always  be  the 
first  and  most  unquestionable  of  all  duties,  because  it  is 
a  law  of  life,  a  departure  from  which  draws  after  it  an 
inevitable  punishment,  —  the  destruction  of  either  the 
bodily  or  the  rational  hfe  of  man.  If  a  man,  living  alone, 
frees  himself  from  the  duty  of  the  struggle  with  Nature, 
he  at  once  inflicts  a  punishment  on  himself  in  that  his 
body  perishes.  But  if  a  man  frees  himself  from  this 
duty,  causing  others  to  fulfil  it,  while  he  ruins  their  lives, 
he  at  once  inflicts  upon  himself  a  punishment  by  destroy- 
ing his  rational  life,  that  is,  the  hfe  which  has  a  rational 
meaning. 

I  was  so  corrupted  by  my  past  life,  and  this  first  and 
unquestionable  law  of  God,  or  of  Nature,  has  been  so 
concealed  in  our  society,  that  the  execution  of  this  law 
seemed  strange,  terrible,  and  even  shameful  to  me,  as 
though  the  execution  of  an  eternal,  unquestionable  law, 
and  not  a  departure  from  it,  can  be  strange,  terrible,  and 
shameful.  At  first  it  appeared  to  me  that  for  the  per- 
formance of  this  matter  there  was  needed  some  kind  of 
an  appliance,  arrangement,  cooperation  of  those  who 
share  my  view,  consent  of  family,  life  in  the  country; 
then  it  appeared  rather  awkward  for  me  to  speak  openly 
to  people  and  to  do  such  an  extraordinary  thing  in  our 
manner  of  life  as  manual  labour,  and  I  did  not  know  how 
to  go  about  it. 

But  I  needed  only  to  comprehend  that  it  was  not  some 
exclusive  activity,  such  as  had  to  be  thought  out  and 
arranged,  but  only  a  return  from  a  false  state,  in  which  I 
was,  to  one  that  was  natural,  that  it  was  only  a  correc- 


298  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

tion  of  a  lie  in  which  I  was  living,  —  I  needed  only  to 
become  conscious  of  this,  in  order  that  all  these  difficulties 
should  be  removed. 

It  was  never  necessary  to  arrange,  adapt,  and  await  the 
consent  of  others,  because,  no  matter  in  what  condition  I 
was,  there  were  always  men  who  fed,  clothed,  and  kept 
warm  not  only  themselves,  but  also  me,  and  under  all 
conditions  I  could  do  that  for  myself  and  for  them,  if  I 
had  enough  time  and  strength  for  it. 

Nor  could  I  experience  any  false  shame  in  my  occupa- 
tion with  a  matter  which  was  unaccustomed  and  surpris- 
ing to  people,  because,  in  not  doing  it,  I  experienced  no 
longer  any  false,  but  real  shame.  When  I  arrived  at  the 
consciousness  of  this  and  at  the  practical  deduction  from 
it,  I  was  fully  rewarded  for  not  having  lost  my  courage 
in  the  presence  of  the  deductions  of  reason  and  for  having 
gone  whither  they  led  me. 

When  I  arrived  at  this  practical  deduction,  I  was 
startled  by  the  ease  and  simplicity  of  the  solution  of  all 
those  questions  which  before  had  seemed  so  difficult  and 
so  complicated. 

To  the  question  what  to  do  there  appeared  a  most 
indubitable  answer :  "  First  of  all  what  I  myself  need,  — 
my  samovar,  my  stove,  my  water,  my  raiment,  —  every- 
thing which  I  could  do  myself." 

In  reply  to  the  question  as  to  whether  this  would  not 
seem  strange  to  the  people  that  did  that,  it  appeared  that 
the  strangeness  lasted  only  a  week,  after  which  time  it 
would  have  been  strange  if  I  had  returned  to  my  former 
conditions. 

In  reply  to  the  question  whether  it  was  necessary  to 
organize  this  physical  labour,  by  establishing  a  coopera- 
tion in  the  country  on  the  land,  it  turned  out  that  this 
was  not  necessary,  that  labour,  if  it  has  for  its  aim  not 
the  obtaining  of  the  possibility  of  being  idle  and  exploit- 
ing the  labour  of  others,  such  as  is  the  labour  of  those 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  299 

who  acquire  wealth,  but  the  gratification  of  needs, 
naturally  draws  one  from  the  city  to  the  country,  to 
the  land,  where  this  labour  is  most  fruitful  and  most 
joyous. 

There  was  no  need  of  establishing  any  cooperative 
society,  because  a  labouring  man  naturally  joins  the 
existing  cooperation  of  working  people. 

To  the  question  as  to  whether  this  labour  would  not 
absorb  all  my  time  and  deprive  me  of  the  possibility  of 
that  mental  activity  which  I  love,  to  which  I  am  used, 
and  which,  in  moments  of  doubt,  I  consider  not  useless,  I 
received  a  most  unexpected  answer.  The  energy  of  the 
mental  activity  was  strengthened  and  evenly  strength- 
ened, freeing  itself  from  everything  superfluous,  in  pro- 
portion of  the  bodily  tension. 

It  turned  out  that,  by  giving  eight  hours  to  physical 
labour,  —  that  half  of  the  day  which  before  I  had  passed 
in  grievous  efforts  at  struggling  with  ennui,  —  I  had  still 
eight  hours  left,  of  which  I,  according  to  the  conditions, 
needed  only  five  for  mental  labour ;  it  turned  out  that  if 
I,  a  very  prolific  writer,  who  for  nearly  forty  years  had 
done  nothing  but  write,  and  who  had  written  three 
hundred  printed  sheets  [of  sixteen  pages  each],  had  all 
these  forty  years  done  manual  labour  with  all  the  work- 
ing people,  and  had  read  and  studied  for  five'  hours  each 
day,  excluding  winter  evenings  and  holidays,  and  had 
written  only  on  hoHdays  at  the  rate  of  two  pages  a  day 
(whereas  I  had  written  as  much  as  a  printed  sheet  a  day), 
I  should  have  written  the  same  three  hundred  sheets  in 
fourteen  years. 

What  turned  out  was  most  astonishing,  —  it  was  a 
very  simple  calculation,  which  a  boy  of  seven  years  may 
do,  and  which  I  had  heretofore  been  unable  to  do.  In  a 
day  there  are  twenty-four  hours ;  we  sleep  eight,  so  there 
are  sixteen  left.  If  a  man  of  any  mental  activity  should 
devote  five  hours  each  day  to  his  activity,  he  would  do 


300  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

an  enormous  amount,  so  what  becomes  of  the  remaining 
eleven  hours  ? 

It  turned  out  that  physical  labour  not  only  does  not 
exclude  the  possibility  of  a  mental  activity,  not  only 
improves  its  quality,  but  improves  the  activity  itself  and 
encourages  it. 

As  to  the  question  whether  this  physical  labour  would 
not  deprive  me  of  many  harmless  pleasures  which  are 
proper  to  man,  such  as  the  enjoyments  of  the  arts,  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge,  the  communion  with  men,  and 
in  general  the  happiness  of  life,  the  very  opposite  turned 
out  to  be  the  case :  the  tenser  the  work  was,  the  more  it 
approached  what  is  considered  rough  agricultural  labour, 
the  more  enjoyments  and  knowledge  did  I  acquire,  and  the 
closer  and  more  amicable  was  my  communion  with  men, 
and  the  more  happiness  of  life  did  I  obtain. 

To  the  question  (so  frequently  heard  by  me  from  not 
very  sincere  people)  as  to  what  result  there  may  be  from 
such  an  insignificant  drop  in  the  ocean,  —  the  participa- 
tion of  my  personal  physical  labour  in  the  ocean  of  labour 
absorbed  by  me,  —  the  same  astonishing  and  unexpected 
answer  was  received. 

It  turned  out  that  I  needed  only  to  make  physical 
labour  a  habitual  condition  of  my  life,  in  order  that  the 
majority  of  my  false  and  expensive  habits  and  needs  dur- 
ing my  physical  idleness  should"  \^ithout  the  least  effort 
on  my  part  naturally  fall  away  from  me.  To  say  nothing 
of  my  habit  of  changing  day  into  night  and  vice  versa, 
and  not  to  mention  the  bed,  the  garments,  the  conven- 
tional cleanliness,  which  with  the  physical  labour  are 
simply  impossible  and  embarrassing,  the  food,  the  need  of 
the  quality  of  the  food,  was  completely  changed.  Instead 
of  sweet,  fat,  refined,  complicated,  seasoned  food,  for  which 
I  had  had  a  hankering  before,  I  began  to  feel  the  need  of 
the  simplest  kind  of  fpod,  which  I  enjoyed  most,  such  as 
cabbage  soup,  porridge,  black  bread,  unsweetened  tea. 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  301 

Thus,  not  to  speak  of  the  simple  example  of  those 
labouring  men  with  whom  I  came  into  contact  and  who 
were  contented  with  little,  the  needs  themselves  imper- 
ceptibly changed  in  consequence  of  the  life  of  labour,  so 
that  my  drop  of  physical  labour,  in  proportion  as  I  became 
accustomed  to  it  and  acquired  the  methods  of  work,  be- 
came more  perceptible ;  in  proportion  as  my  labour  became 
more  fruitful,  my  demands  of  other  people's  labour  be- 
came less  and  less,  and  life  naturally,  without  effort  and 
without  privations,  approached  that  simple  life  of  which 
I  could  not  even  have  dreamed  without  fulfilling  the  law 
of  labour.  It  turned  out  that  my  most  expensive  demands 
on  life,  namely,  the  demands  of  vanity  and  of  diversion 
from  ennui,  were  directly  due  to  an  idle  life. 

With  physical  labour  there  was  no  room  for  vanity, 
and  there  was  no  need  of  diversions,  since  my  time  was 
pleasantly  occupied,  and,  after  fatigue,  a  simple  rest  at 
the  tea,  over  a  book,  in  a  conversation  with  my  family, 
was  incomparably  more  agreeable  to  me  than  the  theatre, 
cards,  a  concert,  grand  society,  —  all  of  those  things  that 
cost  a  great  deal. 

As  to  the  question  whether  this  unaccustomed  work 
would  not  destroy  the  health  which  is  necessary  in  order 
to  be  able  to  serve  men,  it  turned  out  that,  in  spite  of  the 
positive  assertions  of  famous  physicians  that  tense  physi- 
cal labour,  especially  in  my  years,  may  have  deleterious 
results  (in  what  way  do  they  give  us  something  better  in 
Swedish  gymnastics,  massage,  and  so  forth,  —  appliances 
which  are  to  take  the  place  of  the  natural  conditions  of 
man's  life  ?),  it  turned  out  that  the  tenser  the  labour,  the 
stronger,  fresher,  happier,  and  better  did  I  feel  myself. 
So  it  turned  out  to  be  indisputable  that,  just  as  all  these 
cunning  devices  of  the  human  mind,  newspapers,  theatres, 
concerts,  visits,  balls,  cards,  periodicals,  novels,  are  nothing 
but  a  means  for  supporting  man's  spiritual  life  outside  its 
natural  conditions  of  labour  for  others,  so  also  all  the  hygi- 


302  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

enic  and  medical  devices  of  the  human  mind  for  the  ap- 
pliances for  food,  drink,  domicile,  ventilation,  heating, 
clothing,  medicines,  water,  massage,  gymnastics,  electrical 
and  all  other  kinds  of  cures,  —  that  all  these  clever  devices 
were  nothing  but  means  for  supporting  man's  bodily  life 
which  is  exempted  from  all  its  natural  conditions  of  labour, 
—  that  all  this  was  nothing  but  an  arrangement  in  a  her- 
metically closed  room,  by  means  of  chemical  apparatus, 
for  evaporating  water,  and  supplying  the  plants  with  the 
best  air  for  breathing,  whereas  it  is  enough  to  open  a  win- 
dow and  do  that  which  is  proper  not  only  for  man,  but 
also  for  the  animal,  —  to  let  out  and  discharge  the  absorp- 
tion of  food  and  surplus  of  energy  by  means  of  muscular 
labour. 

The  profound  propositions  of  medicine  and  of  hygiene 
for  men  of  our  circle  are  hke  what  a  mechanician  might 
invent  in  order,  by  firing  a  badly  working  engine  and 
stopping  up  all  the  valves,  to  keep  the  engine  from  burst- 
ing. 

When  I  clearly  comprehended  all  this,  I  felt  funny. 
By  a  whole  series  of  doubts  and  searchings  and  by  a  long 
train  of  thought  I  had  arrived  at  the  extraordinary  truth 
that,  if  a  man  has  eyes,  he  has  them  in  order  to  look 
with  them,  and  ears  to  hear,  and  legs  to  walk,  and  hands 
and  a  back  to  work  with  them,  and  that  if  a  man  shall 
not  employ  these  members  for  what  they  were  intended, 
he  will  fare  badly. 

I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  with  us  privileged  people 
the  same  happened  as  with  the  stallions  of  my  acquaint- 
ance. The  clerk,  who  did  not  care  for  horses  and  did  not 
know  anything  about  them,  having  received  his  master's 
order  to  take  the  best  stallions  to  the  horse  mart,  picked 
them  out  of  the  herd  and  put  them  into  stalls ;  and  he 
fed  them  and  gave  them  to  drink ;  but,  as  he  was  anxious 
about  the  expensive  horses,  he  could  not  make  up  his 
mind  to  leave  them  in  anybody  else's  charge,  and  so  did 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  303 

not  drive  them  or  even  let  them  out.  The  horses  became 
stiff- jointed  and  worthless. 

The  same  has  happened  with  us,  but  with  this  differ- 
ence, that  it  is  impossible  in  any  way  to  deceive  the 
horses  and  that,  not  to  let  them  out,  they  were  kept  in 
one  spot  by  means  of  a  halter,  whereas  we  are  kept  in  just 
such  an  unnatural  and  ruinous  condition  by  means  of 
temptations  which  have  enmeshed  us  and  hold  us  as  if 
with  chains.  We  have  arranged  our  life  contrary  to  the 
moral  and  the  physical  nature  of  man,  and  we  strain  all 
the  forces  of  our  mind  in  order  to  assure  man  that  this 
is  the  true  life.  Everything  which  we  call  culture,  our 
sciences  and  our  arts,  the  improvements  of  the  comforts 
of  life,  are  attempts  to  deceive  man's  moral,  natural  needs. 
Everything  which  we  call  hygiene  and  medicine  is  an 
attempt  to  deceive  the  natural  physical  demands  of  human 
nature.  But  these  deceptions  have  their  hmits,  and  we 
have  reached  them. 

If  such  is  man's  real  life,  it  is  better  not  to  live  at  all, 
says  the  reigning,  most  modern  philosophy  of  Schopen- 
hauer and  of  Hartmann.  If  such  is  life,  it  is  better  not 
to  live,  says  the  increasing  number  of  suicides  among 
the  privileged  classes.  If  such  is  life,  it  is  better  for  the 
future  generations  not  to  live,  says  medicine,  in  collusion 
with  science,  and  the  devices  invented  by  it  for  the  de- 
struction of  female  fertility. 

In  the  Bible  it  says  that,  as  man's  law,  in  the  sweat  of 
thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread  and  in  sorrow  shalt  thou 
bring  forth  children. 

Peasant  Bondar^v,  who  has  written  an  article  on  this 
subject,  has  enlightened  me  as  to  the  wisdom  of  this 
utterance.  (In  my  whole  life  two  Kussian  thiakers  have 
had  a  great  moral  effect  upon  me  and  have  made  my 
world  conception  clear  to  me.  These  men  are  not  Russian 
poets,  scholars,  preachers,  but  two  even  now  living  remark- 
able men,  both  of  them  peasants,  Syutaev  and  Bondar^v.) 


304  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

But  —  nous  avons  changS  tout  pa,  as  the  character  in 
Molifere  said  when  he  ranted  about  medicine  and  asserted 
that  the  liver  was  on  the  left  side.  Nous  avons  change 
tout  ga :  men  do  not  need  to  work  in  order  to  support 
themselves,  —  all  that  will  be  done  by  machines,  —  and 
women  need  not  bear  children.  Science  will  teach  us 
other  means,  and  there  are  too  many  people  as  it  is. 

A  tattered  peasant  makes  the  round  of  Krapivensk 
County.  During  the  war  he  was  a  purchaser  of  grain 
with  an  official  of  the  commissary  department.  While 
cultivating  the  acquaintance  of  the  official,  the  peasant,  as 
they  say,  lost  his  mind,  his  fixed  idea  being  that,  hke  any 
gentleman,  he  does  not  need  to  work,  but  can  receive  the 
maintenance  due  to  him  from  his  Majesty  the  emperor. 
This  peasant  now  calls  himself  his  Most  Serene  MiHtary 
Prince  Blokhin,  purveyor  of  military  stores  of  all  con- 
ditions. He  says  of  himself  that  he  has  gone  through 
all  the  ranks  and  that,  after  becoming  an  emeritus  mili- 
tary man,  he  would  receive  from  his  Majesty  the  emperor 
an  open  bank,  garments,  uniforms,  horses,  carriages,  tea, 
peas,  servants,  and  every  other  supply. 

To  the  question  whether  he  does  not  want  to  work 
a  little,  he  always  replies  proudly :  "  Much  obliged,  —  all 
that  will  be  attended  to  by  the  peasants." 

When  you  tell  him  that  the  peasants,  too,  will  not  wish 
to  work,  he  answers :  "  For  the  peasants  this  is  not  diffi- 
cult in  the  performance."  (He  generally  speaks  in  high 
style  and  is  fond  of  verbal  nouns.) 

"  Now  there  is  an  invention  of  machines  for  the  allevi- 
ation of  the  peasants,"  he  says.  "  For  them  there  is  no 
embarrassment." 

When  he  is  asked  what  he  lives  for,  he  replies :  "  For 
the  passing  of  the  time." 

I  always  look  at  this  man  as  into  a  mirror.  I  see 
myself  and  all  our  class  of  people  in  him.  To  end  with 
a  rank,  in  order  to  Hve  for  the  passing  of  the  time  and 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  305 

receive  an  open  bank,  while  the  peasants,  for  whom  it  is  no 
embarrassment  on  account  of  the  invention  of  machines, 
manage  all  these  matters,  —  this  is  a  complete  formulation 
of  the  senseless  faith  of  the  people  of  our  circle. 

When  we  ask  what  it  is  we  have  to  do,  we  do  not  ask 
anything,  but  only  affirm,  only  not  with  such  openness 
as  the  Most  Serene  Mihtary  Prince  Blokhin,  who  has 
gone  through  all  the  ranks  and  has  lost  his  reason,  that 
we  do  not  want  to  do  anything. 

He  who  comes  to  his  senses  cannot  ask  this,  because 
on  the  one  hand  everything  he  uses  has  been  made  by 
men's  hands,  and,  on  the  other,  the  moment  a  healthy 
man  wakes  up  and  eats  his  breakfast,  he  has  the  need  to 
work  with  his  legs,  and  hands,  and  brain.  In  order 
to  find  work  and  to  work,  he  must  only  not  hold  himself 
back ;  only  he  who  considers  it  a  disgrace  to  work,  hke 
the  lady  who  begs  her  guest  not  to  trouble  herself  to 
open  the  door,  but  to  wait  until  she  calls  a  servant,  — 
only  he  can  put  to  himself  the  question  what  he  is 
to  do. 

The  question  is  not  to  invent  some  work  to  do,  —  a 
man  will  never  succeed  in  doing  all  the  work  for  himself 
and  for  others,  —  but  to  get  rid  of  that  criminal  view  of 
life  that  I  eat  and  sleep  for  my  pleasure,  and  to  acquire 
that  simple  and  true  view,  with  which  a  labouring  man 
grows  up  and  lives,  that  a  man  is  above  everything  else 
a  machine  which  is  charged  by  food,  and  that,  therefore, 
to  support  himself,  it  is  a  shame,  and  hard,  and  impossible 
for  him  to  eat  and  not  to  work ;  that  to  eat  and  not  to 
work  is  an  exceedingly  perilous  condition,  something  like 
a  conflagration. 

Let  this  consciousness  exist,  and  there  will  be  work, 
and  the  work  will  always  be  joyous  and  it  will  satisfy  the 
spiritual  and  the  physical  demands.  The  matter  presented 
itself  to  me  as  follows :  the  day  of  every  man  is  by  his 
meals  themselves  divided  into  four  parts,  or  four  ploughing 


306  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN? 

periods,  as  the  peasants  say :  (1)  before  breakfast,  (2) 
from  breakfast  until  dinner,  (3)  from  dinner  until  supper, 
and  (4)  from  supper  until  evening.  Man's  activity,  which 
draws  him  to  itself,  is  divided  into  four  kinds:  (1)  the 
activity  of  the  muscular  force,  —  the  work  of  hands,  feet, 
shoulder,  —  hard  labour  which  makes  one  sweat ;  (2)  the 
activity  of  the  fingers  and  the  wrist,  —  the  activity  of 
dexterity  of  workmanship ;  (3)  the  activity  of  the  mind 
and  of  the  imagination ;  (4)  the  activity  of  communion 
with  other  men.  Those  benefits  which  man  enjoys  may 
also  be  divided  into  four  parts.  Every  man  makes  use, 
in  the  first  place,  of  the  products  of  hard  labour,  —  of  the 
grain,  cattle,  buildings,  wells,  ponds,  etc. ;  in  the  second 
place,  of  the  activity  of  artisan  labour,  —  of  garments, 
boots,  utensils,  etc. ;  in  the  third  place,  of  the  products  of 
mental  activity,  —  of  the  sciences,  of  the  arts,  and,  in  the 
fourth  place,  of  the  institution  of  the  communion  with 
men,  —  of  acquaintanceship,  etc.  And  it  appeared  to  me 
that  it  would  be  best  so  to  rotate  the  occupations  of  the 
day  as  to  bring  into  play  all  four  human  faculties,  and  to 
repeat  all  four  kinds  of  products,  of  which  one  makes  use, 
in  such  a  way  that  the  four  ploughing  periods  may  be 
devoted  :  the  first  —  to  hard  labour,  the  second  —  to  men- 
tal labour,  the  third  —  to  artisan  labour,  and  the  fourth  — 
to  communion  with  men.  It  is  well  if  one  can  arrange 
his  labour  in  such  a  manner,  but  if  that  is  impossible,  one 
thing  is  important,  and  that  is,  to  have  the  consciousness 
of  a  duty  toward  labour,  a  duty  properly  to  employ  every 
period.  * 

It  seemed  to  me  that  only  then  would  there  be  destroyed 
that  false  division  of  labour  which  exists  in  our  society, 
and  would  be  established  that  just  division  of  labour 
which  does  not  impair  man's  happiness. 

For  example,  I  had  busied  myself  all  my  life  with 
mental  labour.  I  said  to  myself  that  I  had  so  divided 
the  labour  that  writing,  that  is,  mental  labour,  was  my 


WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  307 

special  occupation,  and  all  the  other  necessary  occupations 
I  left  to  others  (or  compelled  others)  to  do.  This  appar- 
ently most  convenient  arrangement  for  mental  labour,  to 
say  nothing  of  its  injustice,  was  after  all  disadvantageous 
for  mental  labour. 

My  whole  life,  my  food,  my  sleep,  my  distractions,  I 
had  arranged  in  view  of  these  hours  of  special  labour,  and 
outside  this  labour  I  had  done  nothing.  From  this  it 
followed,  in  the  first  place,  that  I  had  narrowed  down  my 
circle  of  observation  and  knowledge  and  frequently  had 
no  subject  for  study,  and,  having  set  myself  the  problem 
to  describe  the  lives  of  men  (the  lives  of  men  are  the 
perpetual  problem  of  every  mental  activity),  I  frequently 
felt  my  ignorance  and  was  obhged  to  study  and  to  ask 
about  things  which  are  known  to  every  man  who  is  not 
occupied  with  any  special  labour ;  in  the  second  place,  it 
turned  out  that  I  sat  down  to  write  when  I  had  no  inner 
calling  to  write,  and  no  one  demanded  of  me  my  writing 
as  a  writing,  that  is,  my  thoughts,  but  only  wanted  my 
name  for  magazine  purposes.  I  tried  to  squeeze  out  of 
me  whatever  I  could:  at  times  I  did  not  squeeze  out 
anything,  and  at  others  something  bad,  and  'I  experienced 
dissatisfaction  and  pining.  Thus  frequently  passed  days 
and  weeks  when  I  ate,  drank,  slept,  warmed  myself,  and 
did  nothing,  or  did  that  which  no  one  needed,  that  is,  I 
committed  the  most  unquestionable  and  most  abominable 
crime,  which  is  so  rarely,  hardly  ever,  committed  by  a 
man  from  the  labouring  masses.  Now,  when  I  came  to 
recognize  the  necessity  of  physical,  coarse,  and  artisan 
labour,  something  entirely  diJBferent  resulted  from  it :  my 
time  was  occupied,  no  matter  how  modestly,  yet  beyond 
doubt  usefully,  and  joyfully,  and  instructively  for  me. 
For  this  reason  I  tore  myself  away  for  my  specialty  from 
this  unquestionably  useful  and  joyous  occupation  only 
when  I  felt  an  inner  need  and  saw  directly  expressed 
demands  for  my  author  labour ;  and  these  demands  con- 


308  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

ditioned  a  good  quality,  and  so  a  usefulness  and  joyousness 
for  my  special  labour. 

Thus  it  turned  out  that  my  occupation  with  those 
physical  labours  which  are  indispensable  for  me,  as  for 
any  other  man,  not  only  did  not  interfere  with  my  special 
activity,  but  were  also  a  necessary  condition  of  usefulness, 
good  quality,  and  joyousness  of  this  activity. 

A  bird  is  so  built  that  it  must  fly,  walk,  pick,  reflect, 
and  when  it  does  all  that,  it  is  satisfied  and  happy,  —  then, 
to  be  more  brief,  it  is  a  bird.  The  same  is  true  of  a  man : 
only  when  he  walks,  turns,  lifts,  drags,  works  with  his 
fingers,  eyes,  ears,  tongue,  brain,  he  is  satisfied,  he  is  a 
man. 

A  man  who  has  come  to  recognize  his  labour  calling 
will  naturally  strive  for  that  change  of  labour  which  is 
proper  for  him  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  external  and  his 
internal  needs,  and  will  never  change  this  order  except 
when  he  feels  in  himself  an  insuperable  calling  for  some 
exclusive  work  and  there  will  present  themselves  other 
people's  demands  for  this  labour. 

The  quality  of  labour  is  such  that  the  gratification  of 
all  of  man's  needs  wants  the  same  rotation  of  all  kinds 
of  labour,  which  makes  work  not  a  burden,  but  a  joy. 
Only  the  false  belief  that  work  is  a  curse  could  have 
brought  men  to  that  emancipation  from  certain  kinds  of 
labour,  that  is,  to  the  seizure  of  other  men's  labour,  which 
demands  a  forced  occupation  with  a  special  labour  of  other 
men,  which  they  call  division  of  labour. 

We  have  become  so  accustomed  to  our  false  conception 
about  the  arrangement  of  labour  that  it  seems  to  us  that 
it  will  be  better  for  a  shoemaker,  a  machinist,  a  writer,  or 
a  musician,  if  he  shall  exempt  himself  from  labour  which 
is  proper  for  every  man. 

Where  there  will  be  no  violence  exerted  against  another 
man's  labour,  and  no  false  faith  in  the  joyousness  of  idle- 
ness, not  one  man  will,  in  order  to  busy  himself  with  any 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  309 

special  labour,  free  himself  from  physical  work,  which  is 
necessary  for  the  gratification  of  his  needs,  because  the 
special  occupation  is  no  prerogative,  but  a  sacrifice  which 
a  man  brings  to  his  infatuation  and  to  his  brothers. 

A  shoemaker  in  the  country,  who  tears  himself  away 
from  the  joyful  field  labour  and  takes  up  his  work  in 
order  to  mend  or  make  boots  for  his  neighbours,  deprives 
himself  of  the  ever  joyful  and  useful  labour  in  the  field 
for  others,  only  because  he  is  fond  of  making  boots  and 
knows  that  no  one  can  do  this  as  well  as  he,  and  that 
people  will  be  thankful  to  him  for  it.  But  he  cannot 
even  dream  of  a  desire  to  deprive  himself  for  life  of  the 
joyful  rotation  of  labour.  The  same  is  true  of  an  elder,  a 
machinist,  a  writer,  a  scholar.  To  us,  with  our  corrupted 
conceptions,  it  seems  that  if  a  master  degrades  his  clerk 
by  sending  him  back  to  the  country,  or  if  a  minister  is 
sent  to  an  exile  colony,  that  he  has  been  punished,  that 
some  evil  has  been  done  to  him.  In  reaHty,  a  benefit 
has  been  conferred  to  him,  that  is,  his  special,  oppressive 
labour  has  been  abandoned  in  favour  of  the  joyful  rotation 
of  labour. 

In  natural  society  all  this  is  quite  different.  I  know  a 
Commune  where  the  people  supported  themselves.  One 
member  of  this  society  was  more  educated  than  the  rest, 
and  he  was  required  to  read,  so  that  he  had  to  prepare 
himself  in  daytime,  to  be  able  to  read  in  the  evening. 
He  did  so  joyfuUy,  feeling  that  he  was  useful  to  others 
and  was  doing  a  good  deed.  But  he  was  worn  out  by  the 
exclusively  mental  labour,  and  his  health  grew  worse. 
The  members  of  the  Commune  pitied  him  and  asked  him 
to  go  to  work  with  them  in  the  field. 

For  people  who  look  upon  labour  as  the  essence  and 
joy  of  hfe,  the  background,  the  foundation  of  life  will 
always  be  the  struggle  with  nature,  namely,  agricultural, 
mechanical,  and  mental  labour,  and  the  establishment  of 
communion  among  men. 


310  WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO   THEN? 

The  departure  from  one  or  many  of  these  kinds  of 
labour  and  the  special  work  will  exist  only  when  the 
man  of  the  special  work,  loving  this  work  and  knowing 
that  he  is  doing  it  better  than  any  one  else,  sacrifices  his 
advantage  for  the  gratification  of  demands  directly  made 
on  him.  Only  with  such  a  view  of  labour  and  of  the 
resulting  natural  division  of  labour  there  is  destroyed 
the  curse  which  in  our  imagination  is  imposed  upon 
labour,  and  every  labour  always  becomes  a  joy,  because 
a  man  will  do  an  unquestionably  useful  and  joyous,  unop- 
pressive  work,  or  he  will  have  the  consciousness  of  sacri- 
fice in  the  performance  of  a  more  difficult,  exclusive  work, 
but  which  is  such  as  he  does  for  the  good  of  others. 

But  the  division  of  labour  is  more  advantageous.  More 
advantageous  for  whom  ? 

It  is  more  advantageous  to  make  as  many  boots  and 
cottons  as  possible.  But  who  will  make  these  boots 
and  cottons  ? 

There  are  men  who  for  generations  have  been  making 
nothing  but  pin-heads.  How  can  this  be  more  advan- 
tageous for  people  ? 

If  the  question  is  to  make  as  many  cottons  and  pins 
as  possible,  that  is  so  ;  but  the  question  is  in  the  people, 
in  their  good.  Now  the  good  of  men  is  in  life,  and  life  is 
in  work.  How,  then,  can  the  necessity  of  an  agonizing, 
oppressive  work  be  more  advantageous  for  men  ? 

If  the  question  is  only  the  advantage  for  some  people 
without  considering  the  good  of  all  men,  it  is  most 
advantageous  for  one  set  of  men  to  eat  others.  They  say 
that  human  flesh  tastes  good.  What  is  most  advan- 
tageous for  all  men  —  the  one  thing  which  I  wish  for 
myself  —  is  the  greatest  good  and  the  gratification  of  all 
needs,  of  body  and  soul,  of  conscience,  of  reason,  which 
are  implanted  in  me.  Now  I  found  in  my  case  that  for 
my  good  and  for  the  gratification  of  these  needs  of  mine 
I  need  only  cure  myself  from  that  madness  in  which  I 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN?  311 

had  lived  with  that  Krapivensk  madman,  and  which  con- 
sisted in  this :  that  gentlemen  are  not  supposed  to  work, 
and  that  others  must  attend  to  that  and,  without  invent- 
ing anything,  do  only  what  is  proper  to  man,  while  grati- 
fying his  needs.  When  I  found  this,  I  convinced  myself 
that  this  labour  for  the  gratification  of  one's  needs  natu- 
rally divided  itself  into  different  kinds  of  labour,  each  of 
which  has  its  charm  and  not  only  forms  no  burden,  but 
also  serves  as  a  rest  from  another  kind  of  labour. 

In  a  coarse  way  (by  no  means  insisting  on  the  correct- 
ness of  such  a  division)  I  divided  this  labour  according  to 
those  demands  which  I  make  on  life  into  four  parts, 
to  correspond  to  the  four  periods  of  work  of  which  the 
day  is  composed,  and  I  try  to  satisfy  these  demands. 

So  these  are  the  answers  which  I  found  for  myself  in 
reply  to  the  question  what  we  shall  do. 

The  first :  not  to  lie  to  myself  ;  no  matter  how  distant 
my  path  of  life  may  be  from  that  true  path  which  reason 
opens  to  me,  not  to  be  afraid  of  the  truth. 

The  second:  to  renounce  the  consciousness  of  my 
righteousness,  my  prerogatives,  my  privileges  in  compari- 
son with  other  men,  and  to  recognize  myself  guilty. 

The  third:  to  fulfil  that  eternal,  indisputable  law  of 
man,  —  with  the  labour  of  my  whole  being  to  struggle 
with  Nature  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  my  own  life 
and  that  of  other  men. 


I  HAVE  finished,  for  I  have  said  everything  which  con- 
cerned me,  but  I  cannot  refrain  from  the  desire  to  tell  also 
that  which  concerns  everybody  :  to  verify  those  deduc- 
tions at  which  I  have  arrived  by  general  considerations. 

What  I  wish  to  talk  about  is  why  it  seems  to  me  that 
very  many  people  of  our  circle  must  arrive  at  the  same 
thing  at  which  I  have  arrived,  and  also  what  wiU  happen 
if  even  a  few  people  will  arrive  at  the  same. 

I  think  that  many  people  will  arrive  at  the  same  con- 
.  elusions  at  which  I  have  arrived,  because  if  men  of  our 
circle,  of  our  caste,  will  take  a  serious  look  at  themselves, 
young  people,  who  are  in  search  of  their  personal  happi- 
ness, will  be  terrified  at  the  ever  increasing  inanity  of 
their  life,  which  clearly  draws  them  to  their  perdition ; 
conscientious  people  will  be  terrified  at  the  cruelty  and 
the  illegality  of  their  life  ;  and  timid  people  will  be  terri- 
fied at  the  perilousness  of  their  life. 

The  misfortune  of  our  life :  no  matter  how  much  we, 
the  rich,  with  the  aid  of  science  and  of  art,  mend  and 
support  this  our  false  life,  this  life  with  every  year  be- 
comes weaker,  and  more  morbid,  and  more  painful ;  with 
every  year  there  is  an  increase  in  the  number  of  suicides 
and  in  the  refraining  from  childbirth  ;  with  every  year  the 
new  generations  of  men  of  this  class  become  weaker  and 
weaker ;  with  every  year  we  feel  the  increasing  gloom  of 
this  hfe. 

It  is  obvious  that  on  this  road  of  the  increase  of  the 
comforts  and  pleasures  of  life,  of  cures  and  artificial  teeth, 
hair,  breathing,  massages,  and  so  forth,  there  can  be  no 

312 


WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  313 

salvation  ;  this  truth  has  become  such  a  truism  that  in 
the  newspapers  they  print  advertisements  about  stomachic 
powders  for  the  rich  under  the  title,  "  Blessings  for  the 
poor,"  where  it  says  that  only  the  poor  have  a  good  diges- 
tion, but  that  the  rich  need  assistance,  and  with  it  these 
powders. 

This  cannot  be  mended  by  any  amusements,  comforts, 
powders,  —  this  can  be  corrected  only  by  a  change  of 
Hfe. 

Tloe  disagreement  of  our  life  with  our  conscience :  no 
matter  how  much  we  may  try  to  justify  to  ourselves  our 
unfaithfulness  to  humanity,  all  our  justifications  scatter 
to  the  winds  before  that  which  is  obvious :  around  us 
people  die  from  work  above  their  strength  and  from  want ; 
we  ruin  the  food,  the  garments,  the  labour  of  men,  in 
order  to  find  diversion  and  change.  And  so  the  conscience 
of  a  man  of  our  circle,  if  there  is  but  a  small  residue  of  it 
left  in  him,  cannot  fall  asleep,  and  it  poisons  all  those 
comforts  and  pleasures  of  life  which  are  furnished  to  us 
by  our  sufferiag  brothers  who  perish  in  labour. 

Not  only  does  every  conscientious  man  feel  this,  he 
would  be  glad  to  forget  it,  but  he  cannot  do  so  in  our 
time,  —  the  whole  better  part  of  science  and  of  art,  the 
one  in  which  the  meaning  of  its  calling  is  left,  reminds  us 
constantly  of  our  cruelty  and  of  our  illegal  situation.  The 
old,  firm  justifications  are  all  destroyed ;  the  new,  ephem- 
eral justifications  of  progress  of  science  for  science'  sake, 
and  of  art  for  art's  sake,  do  not  bear  the  light  of  simple 
common  sense. 

The  conscience  of  men  cannot  be  put  at  rest  with  new 
inventions,  but  only  with  a  change  of  life,  with  which 
there  will  be  no  need  and  no  cause  for  any  justification. 

The  perilousness  of  our  life:  no  matter  how  we  try 
to  conceal  from  ourselves  the  simple,  most  obvious 
danger  of  the  exhaustion  of  the  patience  of  those  men 
whom  we  choke ;  no  matter  how  much  we  try  to  coun- 


314  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

teract  this  danger  by  all  kinds  of  deceptions,  acts  of 
violence,  and  propitiations,  this  danger  is  growing  with 
every  day  and  with  every  hour,  and  has  been  threatening 
us  for  a  long  time,  and  even  now  it  has  matured  so  much 
that  we  with  difficulty  hold  ourselves  in  our  boat  over 
the  agitated  sea,  which  is  about  to  swamp  us  and  angrily 
to  swallow  and  devour  us.  The  labouring  revolution, 
with  the  terrors  of  destructions  and  murders,  has  not  only 
been  threatening  us,  but  we  have  been  Hving  on  it  for 
thirty  years,  and  so  far  we  have  with  all  kinds  of  cunning 
devices  managed  for  a  time  to  postpone  its  eruption. 
Such  is  the  state  of  Europe;  such  is  the  state  with  us, 
and  it  is  even  worse  with  us,  because  it  has  no  safety- 
valves.  The  classes  which  oppress  the  masses,  except  the 
Tsar,  now  have  no  justification  in  the  eyes  of  the  masses ; 
they  aU  hold  themselves  in  their  position  by  nothing  but 
violence,  cunning,  and  opportunism,  that  is,  by  agility, 
but  the  hatred  in  the  best  representatives  of  the  masses 
and  the  contempt  for  us  among  the  best  are  growing 
with  every  hour. 

Among  our  masses  there  has  in  the  last  three  or  four 
years  come  into  general  use  a  new,  significant  word ;  this 
word,  which  I  had  never  heard  before,  they  now  use 
opprobriously  in  tlie  streets  and  define  us  as  "  drones." 

The  hatred  and  contempt  of  the  oppressed  masses  are 
growing,  and  the  physical  and  moral  forces  of  the  wealthy 
classes  are  weakening ;  the  deception,  by  means  of  which 
everything  is  holding  itself,  is  being  worn  out,  and  the 
wealthy  classes  can  no  longer  console  themselves  by 
anything  in  this  mortal  peril. 

It  is  impossible  to  return  to  the  old  conditions ;  it  is 
impossible  to  renew  the  destroyed  prestige :  there  is  but 
one  thing  left  to  do  for  those  who  do  not  wish  to  change 
their  lives,  and  that  is,  to  hope  that  things  will  suffice 
for  their  Hfe,  and  afterward  let  it  be  as  it  may. 

Even  so  does  the  blind  crowd  of  the  wealthy  classes 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  315 

do ;  but  the  peril  is  growing  all  the  time,  and  the  terrible 
catastrophe  is  coming  nearer. 

Three  causes  show  to  the  men  of  the  wealthy  classes 
the  necessity  for  a  change  of  their  life :  the  need  for  a 
personal  good  for  themselves  and  for  their  nearest  friends, 
which  is  not  satisfied  on  the  path  on  which  the  rich  are 
standing;  the  necessity  of  satisfying  the  voice  of  con- 
science, the  impossibility  of  which  is  obvious  on  the  pres- 
ent path;  and  the  menacing  and  ever  growing  danger  of 
life,  which  is  not  removed  by  any  external  means ;  all 
three  causes  taken  together  must  lead  the  men  of  the 
wealthy  classes  to  a  change  of  their  lives,  to  a  change 
which  would  satisfy  their  good  and  also  their  consciences, 
and  would  remove  the  danger. 

There  is  but  one  such  a  change :  to  stop  cheating,  to 
repent,  and  to  recognize  labour  not  as  a  curse,  but  as  a 
joyous  affair  of  life. 

But  what  of  it  that  I  shall  work  ten,  eight,  or  five 
hours  at  physical  labour,  which  thousands  of  peasants 
will  gladly  do  for  the  money  which  I  have,  I  am  asked. 

The  first  thing  and  the  simplest  and  most  indubitable 
thing  will  be  this,  that  you  will  be  merrier,  healthier, 
more  cheerful,  and  better,  and  you  will  know  what  the 
real  hfe  is,  from  which  you  have  been4iiding  yourself,  or 
which  has  been  concealed  from  you. 

The  second  thing  will  be  this,  that  if  you  have  a  con- 
science, it  will  not  only  not  suffer,  as  it  does  now,  looking 
at  the  work  of  men  (the  meaning  of  which  we,  who  do 
not  know  it,  always  magnify  or  minimize),  but  you  will 
all  the  time  experience  a  joyous  consciousness  of  the  fact 
that  with  every  day  you  more  and  more  satisfy  the 
demand  of  your  conscience  and  get  away  from  that  ter- 
rible position  of  such  an  accumulation  of  evil  in  our  life 
that  there  is  no  possibility  of  doing  any  good  to  people ; 
you  will  feel  a  joy  at  living  freely  with  the  possibility  of 
the  good ;  you  will  knock  a  window,  an  opening  of  light, 


316  WHAT   SHALL    WE    DO   THEN? 

into  the  sphere  of  the  moral  world,  which  was  hidden 
from  you.  What  will  happen  will  be  this :  instead  of  the 
eternal  fear  of  retribution  for  your  evil  you  will  feel  that 
you  are  saving  others  from  this  retribution,  and,  above 
all,  that  you  are  saving  the  oppressed  from  the  grievous 
sensation  of  malice  and  of  revenge. 

"  But  it  is  ridiculous,"  they  say,  "  for  the  men  of  our 
society,  with  the  profound  questions  before  us,  —  philo- 
sophical, scientific,  political,  artistic,  ecclesiastical,  social 
questions,  —  for  us  ministers,  senators,  academicians,  pro- 
fessors, artists,  singers,  for  us,  one-fourth  of  whose  time  is 
so  highly  appreciated  by  men,  to  waste  our  time,  —  on 
what  ?  —  on  cleaning  our  boots,  washing  our  shirts,  dig- 
ging, setting  out  potatoes,  or  feeding  our  chickens  and 
our  cows,  and  so  forth,  —  on  those  things  which  are 
gladly  done  for  us,  not  only  by  our  janitor  and  our  cook, 
but  also  by  thousands  of  men  who  highly  value  our 
time." 

But  why  do  we  dress,  wash,  scratch  ourselves  (excuse 
the  details),  why  do  we  hold  our  vessel,  why  do  we  walk 
ourselves,  hand  a  chair  to  a  lady  and  to  guests,  open  and 
close  doors,  help  people  into  a  carriage,  and  do  hundreds 
of  similar  things,  which  formerly  slaves  used  to  do  for 
us? 

Because  we  consider  this  proper,  because  so  demands 
human  dignity,  that  is  man's  duty,  man's  obligation. 

The  same  is  true  of  physical  labour. 

Man's  dignity,  his  sacred  duty  and  obligation,  is  to 
make  use  of  the  hands  and  feet  given  him  for  the  purpose 
for  which  they  are  given  to  him,  and  to  use  the  devoured 
food  for  work  which  is  productive  of  this  food,  and  not  to 
let  them  become  atrophied,  not  wash  and  clean  them  and 
use  them  only  for  the  purpose  of  shoving  food,  drink, 
and  cigarettes  into  the  mouth. 

Such  is  the  significance  which  the  occupation  with 
physical  labour  has  for  each  man  in  any  society ;  but  in 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  317 

our  society,  where  the  deviation  from  this  law  of  Nature 
has  hecome  the  misfortune  of  the  whole  circle  of  men, 
the  occupation  with  physical  labour  receives  also  another 
significance,  —  that  of  a  sermon  and  of  an  activity  which 
removes  the  terrible  calamities  which  threaten  humanity. 
To  say  that  for  a  cultured  man  the  occupation  with 
physical  labour  is  insignificant  is  the  same  as  saying  in 
the  building  of  a  temple:  "What  importance  can  there 
be  in  placing  one  stone  evenly  in  its  place?" 

Every  great  work  is,  indeed,  done  under  conditions  of 
imperceptibility,  modesty,  simplicity:  it  is  impossible  to 
plough,  to  build,  to  graze  cattle,  or  even  to  think  under 
an  illumination,  under  roar  of  cannon,  and  in  uniforms. 
The  illumination,  the  roar  of  cannon,  music,  uniforms, 
cleanliness,  splendour,  with  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
combine  the  idea  of  the  importance  of  an  occupation,  on 
the  contrary,  always  serve  as  signs  that  the  matter  is 
lacking  importance. 

Great,  true  acts  are  always  simple  and  modest. 

And  such  is  the  very  great  work  which  is  before  us, — 
the  solution  of  those  terrible  contradictions  in  which  we 
live. 

The  acts  which  solve  these  contradictions  are  these 
modest,  imperceptible,  apparently  ridiculous  acts :  minis- 
tering to  ourselves,  physical  labour  for  ourselves  and,  if 
possible,  for  others.  They  are  incumbent  on  us,  the  rich, 
if  we  comprehend  the  misfortune,  unscrupulousness,  and 
danger  of  the  situation,  into  which  we  have  fallen. 

What  will  come  of  it  if  I  and  two  or  three  dozen  men 
will  not  disdain  work  and  will  consider  it  necessary  for 
our  happiness,  peace  of  mind,  and  security  ?  What  will 
happen  will  be  this:  A  dozen,  two,  three  dozen  men 
will,  without  coming  into  conflict  with  any  one,  without 
any  governmental  or  revolutionary  violence,  solve  for 
themselves  the  apparently  insoluble  question  which  is 
standing  before  the  whole  world,  and  wiU  solve  it  in  such 


318  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

a  way  that  they  will  live  better,  that  their  consciences 
will  become  calmer,  and  that  the  evil  of  oppression  will 
no  longer  be  terrible  to  them ;  other  people  will  see  that 
the  good,  for  which  they  are  searching  everywhere,  is 
here  close  to  them,  that  the  apparently  insoluble  contra- 
dictions of  conscience  and  of  the  structure  of  the  universe 
are  solved  in  the  easiest  and  most  joyous  manner  possible, 
and  that,  instead  of  being  afraid  of  men  who  surround 
them,  it  is  necessary  to  come  nearer  to  them  and  love 
them. 

The  apparently  insoluble  economic  and  social  question 
is  the  question  of  Krylov's  box:  it  opens  in  a  simple 
manner. 

But  it  will  not  open  itseK  so  long  as  people  will  not 
simply  do  the  first  and  most  simple  thing,  —  so  long  as 
they  do  not  open  it. 

The  apparently  insoluble  question  is  the  ancient  ques- 
tion of  the  exploitation  of  other  people's  labour ;  this 
question  has  in  our  day  found  its  expression  in  property. 

In  our  day  property  is  the  root  of  every  evil,  —  of  the 
sufferings  of  men  who  have  it  or  who  are  deprived  of  it, 
and  of  bites  of  conscience  of  those  who  misuse  it,  and  of 
the  danger  of  conflicts  between  those  who  have  an  abun- 
dance of  it  and  those  who  are  deprived  of  it.  Property  is 
the  root  of  evil,  and  at  the  same  time  it  is  that  toward 
which  all  the  activity  of  modern  society  is  directed,  that 
which  guides  the  activity  of  our  whole  world. 

Governments  and  states  intrigue  and  fight  for  the  pos- 
session of  the  banks  of  the  Khine,  of  land  in  Africa,  in 
China,  on  the  Balkan  peninsula.  Bankers,  merchants, 
manufacturers,  agriculturists,  labour,  devise,  suffer,  and 
cause  others  to  suffer  for  the  sake  of  possessions ;  offi- 
cials, artisans,  struggle,  deceive,  oppress,  suff'er  for  the  sake 
of  possessions ;  courts,  the  police,  guard  property ;  hard 
labour,  prisons,  —  all  the  terrors  of  so-called  punishments, 
—  are  all  on  account  of  property. 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  319 

Property  is  the  root  of  all  evil ;  and  the  whole  world  is 
busy  dividing  and  protecting  property. 

What,  then,  is  property  ? 

People  are  accustomed  to  think  that  ownership  is 
something  which  actually  belongs  to  man.  This  is  the 
reason  why  they  have  called  it  ownership.  We  say  of  a 
house  and  of  a  hand  alike :  "  My  own  hand,"  and  "  My 
own  house." 

But  this  is  obviously  a  delusion  and  a  superstition. 

We  know,  and  if  we  do  not  know,  we  can  easily  see, 
that  ownership  is  only  a  means  for  using  the  labour  of 
others ;  but  the  labour  of  others  can  in  no  way  be  my 
own.  It  even  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  concept 
of  ownership,  which  is  very  exact  and  precise.  A  man 
has  always  called,  and  always  will  call,  his  own  what  is 
subject  to  his  will  and  is  connected  with  his  conscious- 
ness, —  his  body.  The  moment  a  man  calls  that  his  own 
which  is  not  his  body,  but  which  he  wishes  should  be 
subjected  to  his  will,  hke  his  body,  he  makes  a  mistake 
and  lays  up  disappointments  and  sufferings  for  himself 
and  subjects  himself  to  the  necessity  of  making  others 
suffer. 

A  man  calls  his  wife,  his  children,  his  slaves,  his  chat- 
tels his  property,  but  reality  always  shows  him  his  mis- 
take, and  he  is  obliged  to  renounce  this  superstition  or  to 
suffer  and  cause  others  to  suffer. 

At  the  present  time  we,  nominally  rejecting  the  owner- 
ship of  men,  thanks  to  the  money  and  the  exaction  of  the 
money  by  the  government,  proclaim  our  property  rights 
to  money,  that  is,  to  the  labour  of  others. 

But  as  the  property  right  to  one's  wife,  son,  slave,  or 
horse  is  a  fiction,  which  is  destroyed  by  reahty  and  only 
causes  him  to  suffer  who  beheves  in  it,  because  my  wife, 
my  son,  will  never  submit  to  my  will,  like  my  body, 
and  my  true  property  will  still  be  in  my  body,  so  also  the 
ownership  of  money  will  never  be  an  ownership,  but  only 


320  WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN? 

a  self-deception  and  source  of  sufferings,  while  my  prop- 
erty will  still  consist  in  my  body,  in  that  which  always 
submits  to  my  will  and  is  connected  with  my  conscious- 
ness. 

It  is  only  to  us,  who  have  become  accustomed  to  call 
that  which  is  not  our  body  our  property,  that  it  can 
appear  that  such  a  wild  superstition  may  be  useful  to  us 
and  remain  without  any  harmful  consequences  to  us ;  but 
we  need  only  reflect  on  the  essence  of  the  matter  in  order 
to  see  that  this  superstition,  like  any  other,  brings  with  it 
the  most  terrible  consequences. 

Let  us  take  the  simplest  example. 

I  consider  myself  my  own  property  and  another  man 
my  property. 

I  must  know  how  to  prepare  a  dinner.  If  I  did  not 
have  the  superstition  about  the  ownership  of  another 
man,  I  should  have  taught  this  art,  like  any  other  I  may 
need,  to  my  property,  that  is  to  my  body ;  but  instead  I 
teach  it  to  my  imaginary  property,  and  the  result  is  this, 
that  my  cook  does  not  obey  me,  does  not  wish  to  please 
me,  and  even  runs  away  from  me,  or  dies,  and  I  am  left 
with  the  ungratified,  excited  necessity  of  gratifying  my- 
self and  with  the  lost  habit  of  studying,  and  with  the 
consciousness  that  I  have  lost  as  much  time  in  my  worries 
with  this  cook  as  would  suffice  for  me  to  have  learned 
the  art  myself.  The  same  is  true  of  the  ownership  of 
buildings,  garments,  utensils,  land,  and  money.  Every 
imaginary  property  evokes  in  me  non-corresponding,  not 
always  gratifiable,  needs,  and  deprives  me  of  the  possibility 
of  acquiring  for  my  true  and  unquestionable  property,  for 
my  body,  that  knowledge,  that  skill,  those  habits,  those 
perfections,  which  I  could  have  acquired. 

The  result  is  always  this,  that  I  have  vainly  lost  my 
strength  for  myself,  for  my  true  property,  and  sometimes 
even  my  life  without  a  residue  for  what  never  has  been, 
a  ad  never  could  be,  my  property. 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  321 

I  provide  myself  with  what  I  imagine  to  be  my  own 
library,  my  own  picture-gallery,  my  own  apartments,  my 
own  garments,  obtain  my  own  money  with  which  to  buy 
what  I  need,  and  the  end  of  it  is  that,  while  busying 
myself  with  this  imaginary  property  as  though  it  were 
real,  I  completely  lose  the  consciousness  of  the  distinction 
between  that  which  is  my  real  property,  over  which  I 
actually  can  work,  which  can  serve  me,  and  which  will 
always  remain  in  my  power,  and  that  which  is  not,  and 
cannot  be,  my  property,  no  matter  how  I  may  call  it, 
and  which  cannot  be  the  subject  of  my  activity. 

Words  have  always  a  clear  meaning  so  long  as  we  do 
not  intentionally  give  them  a  false  significance. 

What  does  property  mean  ?  .  It  means  that  which  is 
given  and  belongs  to  me  exclusively,  that  which  I  can 
always  employ  in  any  manner  I  may  wish,  which  no  one 
can  ever  take  away  from  me,  which  remains  mine  to 
the  end  of  my  life,  and  that  which  I  must  use,  increase, 
improve. 

Such  a  subject  of  ownership  for  each  man  is  only  he 
himself. 

And  yet  it  is  in  this  very  sense  that  the  imaginary 
ownership  of  men  is  taken,  the  one  in  the  name  of  which 
(to  do  the  impossible,  —  to  make  this  imaginary  property 
real)  all  the  terrible  evil  in  the  world  takes  place,  —  the 
wars  and  executions,  and  courts,  and  prisons,  and  luxury, 
and  debauch,  and  murder,  and  the  ruin  of  men. 

What,  then,  will  happen  if  a  dozen  men  will  plough, 
chop  wood,  make  boots,  not  from  necessity,  but  from  the 
consciousness  that  a  man  must  work  and  that  the  more 
he  works  the  better  it  will  be  for  him  ?  What  will  hap- 
pen will  be  this,  that  a  dozen  men,  or  even  one  man,  will, 
both  in  cognition  and  in  fact,  show  men  that  that  terrible 
evil  from  which  they  suffer  is  not  a  law  of  fate,  the  will  of 
God,  or  some  historical  necessity,  but  a  superstition,  which, 
far  from  being  strong  and  terrible,  is  weak  and  insignifi- 


322  WHAT  SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

cant,  and  which  one  must  stop  believing  in,  as  in  idols,  in 
order  to  be  freed  from  it  and  to  destroy  it,  like  a  frail 
cobweb. 

Men  who  will  begin  to  work  in  order  to  fulfil  the  joy- 
ous law  of  life,  that  is,  who  labour  for  the  fulfilment  of  the 
law  of  work,  will  free  themselves  from  the  superstition  of 
personal  ownership,  which  is  pregnant  with  calamities ; 
and  all  the  institutions  of  the  world,  which  exist  for  the 
support  of  this  putative  property  outside  of  one's  body, 
will  appear  to  them  not  only  useless,  but  even  embarrass- 
ing ;  and  it  will  become  clear  to  all  that  all  these  institu- 
tions are  not  indispensable,  but  injurious,  imaginary,  and 
false  conditions  of  life. 

For  a  man  who  regards  labour  not  as  a  curse,  but  as  a 
joy,  the  property  outside  of  his  body,  that  is,  the  right  or 
the  possibihty  of  using  the  labour  of  others,  will  be  not 
only  useless,  but  even  embarrassing. 

If  I  am  fond  and  in  the  habit  of  preparing  my  own 
dinner,  the  fact  that  another  man  will  do  this  for  me 
will  deprive  me  of  my  customary  occupation  and  will  not 
satisfy  me  so  much  as  I  used  to  satisfy  myself ;  besides, 
the  acquisition  of  imaginary  property  will  be  useless  for 
such  a  man :  a  man  who  regards  labour  as  life  itself  fills 
his  Hfe  with  it,  and  so  is  less  and  less  in  the  need  of  the 
labour  of  others,  that  is,  in  property  for  the  occupation  of 
his  idle  time,  for  the  pleasures  and  adornment  of  his  life. 

If  a  man's  life  is  filled  with  labour,  he  needs  no  rooms, 
no  furniture,  no  varied  beautiful  garments ;  he  needs  less 
of  expensive  food,  no  means  for  transportation,  no  dis- 
tractions. 

But  above  all  else,  a  man  who  regards  work  as  the 
business  and  joy  of  his  life  will  not  seek  any  alleviation 
of  his  labour  which  can  be  given  to  him  through  the  work 
of  others. 

A  man  who  regards  life  as  work  will  have  for  his 
aim,  in  proportion  as  he  acquires  skill,  agility,  and  endur- 


WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO    THEN?  323 

ance,  more  and  more  work,  which  fills  his  life  more  and 
more. 

For  such  a  man,  who  assumes  the  meaning  of  his  life 
to  lie  in  labour,  and  not  in  its  results,  not  in  the  acqui- 
sition of  property,  that  is,  in  the  labour  of  others,  there 
cannot  even  be  any  question  about  instruments  of 
labour. 

Though  such  a  man  will  always  choose  the  most 
productive  instruments  of  labour,  he  will  get  the  same 
satisfaction  from  work  even  if  he  works  with  the  least 
productive  tools. 

If  there  is  a  steam  plough,  he  will  plough  with  it ;  if 
there  is  none,  he  will  plough  with  a  horse  plough ;  and 
if  he  has  not  that,  he  will  use  a  wooden  plough ;  and  if 
not  that,  he  will  dig  with  a  spade,  and  under  all  con- 
ditions will  he  equally  attain  his  aim,  which  is  to  pass  his 
Hfe  in  work  useful  to  men,  and  so  he  will  derive  from  it 
his  full  satisfaction. 

The  condition  of  such  a  man,  both  from  external  and 
internal  conditions,  will  be  happier  than  his  who  puts  his 
life  in  the  acquisition  of  property.^ 

From  external  conditions  such  a  man  will  never  be  in 
want,  because  men,  seeing  his  desire  to  work,  as  in  the 
water-power  to  which  a  mill  is  attached,  will  always  try 
to  make  his  labour  most  productive,  and,  to  have  it  as 
productive  as  possible,  they  will  make  his  material  exist- 
ence secure,  which  they  do  not  do  for  men  who  strive 
after  possessions.  But  the  security  of  material  conditions 
is  all  a  man  needs. 

From  internal  conditions  such  a  man  will  always  be 
happier  than  he  who  seeks  possessions,  because  the  latter 
will  never  obtain  what  he  is  striving  after,  while  the  first 
will  always  get  it  in  accordance  with  his  strength:  the 
feeble,  the  old,  the  dying,  as  the  proverb  says,  with  a 
crowbar  in  their  hands,  will  receive  full  satisfaction  and 
the  love  and  sympathy  of  men. 


324  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

So  that  is  what  will  happen  if  a  few  crazy,  odd  people 
will  plough,  make  boots,  and  so  forth,  instead  of  smoking 
cigarettes,  playing  vint,  and  travelling  everywhere,  taking 
with  them  their  ennui  during  the  ten  hours  of  the  day 
which  every  mental  worker  has  free ! 

What  will  happen  will  be  this,  that  these  crazy  people 
will  show  in  fact  that  the  imaginary  property,  which  is 
the  cause  of  suffering  and  making  others  suffer,  is  un- 
necessary for  happiness  and  embarrassing,  and  that  it  is 
only  a  superstition,  —  that  ownership,  true  ownership, 
is  vested  only  in  one's  head,  hands,  and  feet,  and  that,  in 
order  actually  to  exploit  this  property  to  good  advantage 
and  with  joy,  it  is  necessary  to  reject  the  false  conception 
of  property  outside  of  one's  body,  on  which  we  waste  the 
best  forces  of  our  life.  What  will  happen  will  be  this, 
that  these  men  will  show  that  only  when  man  stops 
believing  in  the  imaginary  property  he  properly  works 
his  real  property,  his  ability,  his  body,  so  that  they  will 
give  him  returns  a  hundredfold  and  happiness  of  which 
we  have  no  conception,  and  he  will  be  such  a  useful, 
strong,  and  good  man  that,  no  matter  where  he  may  be 
thrown,  he  will  always  alight  on  his  feet,  will  every- 
where always  be  a  brother  to  all,  and  will  be  known  and 
needed  and  dear  to  all.  And  people,  looking  at  one,  at  a 
dozen  such  crazy  men,  will  comprehend  what  they  must 
all  do  in  order  to  untie  that  terrible  knot  into  which  they 
have  been  drawn  by  the  superstition  of  ownership,  in 
order  to  free  themselves  from  the  unfortunate  position 
from  which  they  all  groan  in  one  voice,  not  knowing  a 
way  out  from  it. 

But  what  will  one  man  do  in  a  crowd  which  does  not 
agree  with  him  ? 

There  is  no  reflection  which  more  obviously  shows  the 
unrighteousness  of  those  who  employ  it. 

The  tow-men  tow  a  boat  against  the  stream.  Is  it  pos- 
sible there  will  be  found  such  a  stupid  tow-man  who  will 


WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO   THEN?  325 

refuse  to  do  his  pulling,  because  he  is  not  able  by  himself 
to  tow  the  boat  up  the  river  ? 

He  who  in  addition  to  his  rights  of  an  animal  life,  such 
as  to  eat  and  to  sleep,  recognizes  any  human  duty,  knows 
full  well  wherein  this  duty  consists,  as  well  as  the  tow- 
man  knows,  who  shoulders  the  tow-rope.  The  tow-man 
knows  very  well  that  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  pull  the  rope 
and  walk  in  a  well-trod  direction.  He  will  be  lookiog 
for  something  to  do  and  how  to  do  it,  only  when  he  has 
thrown  off  his  rope.  And  what  is  true  of  the  tow-men 
and  of  all  other  men  who  do  a  common  work  is  also  true  of 
the  work  of  all  humanity ;  each  man  must  not  take  off  the 
tow-rope,  but  must  pull  at  it  in  the  direction  indicated  by 
the  master  and  opposite  to  the  current.  For  this  the 
same  intellect  has  been  given  to  men  that  the  direction 
might  be  always  one  and  the  same. 

This  direction  is  given  so  obviously,  so  indubitably,  in 
the  whole  life  of  all  men  about  us,  and  in  the  conscience 
of  every  individual  man,  and  in  the  whole  expression  of 
men's  wisdom,  that  only  he  who  does  not  want  to  work 
can  say  that  he  does  not  see  it. 

So  what  will  come  of  it  ? 

This,  that  one  or  two  men  will  pull ;  looking  at  them, 
a  third  man  will  join  them,  and  so  the  best  men  will  join 
them  until  the  matter  wiU  advance  and  go  as  though 
pushing  and  invitiag  those  who  do  not  understand  what 
is  being  done  and  for  what  purpose. 

The  men  who  consciously  work  for  the  fulfilment  of 
the  law  of  God  will  at  first  be  joined  by  men  who  semi- 
consciously,  taking  things  half  on  faith,  recognize  the 
same  thing ;  then  they  will  be  joined  by  a  large  number 
of  men  who  recognize  the  same  through  their  faith  in  the 
representative  men,  and,  finally,  the  majority  of  men  will 
recognize  the  same,  and  then  all  men  will  stop  ruining 
themselves  and  will  find  happiness.  That  will  be  (and  it 
will  be  very  soon)  when  the  men  of  our  circle,  and  after 


326  WHAT    SHALL   WE    DO    THEN? 

them  the  vast  majority  of  the  labourers,  will  not  consider 
it  a  shame  to  clean  privies,  and  yet  not  a  shame  to  till 
them  and  let  people,  their  brothers,  clean  them ;  a  shame 
to  call  on  people  in  their  personal  boots,  and  yet  not  a 
shame  to  pass  in  galoshes  by  men  who  have  no  foot- 
gear ;  a  shame  not  to  know  French  or  the  latest  news,  and 
not  a  shame  to  eat  bread  and  yet  not  to  know  how  to  set 
it ;  a  shame  not  to  have  a  starched  shirt  and  clean  dresses, 
and  not  a  shame  to  wear  clean  garments,  in  order  to  point 
out  their  idleness ;  a  shame  to  have  dirty  hands,  and  not 
a  shame  not  to  have  callous  hands. 

All  that  will  happen  when  public  opinion  will  demand 
it.  But  public  opinion  will  demand  it  when  in  the  minds 
of  men  will  be  destroyed  the  offences  which  concealed 
the  truth  from  them.  Within  my  memory  great  changes 
have  taken  place  in  this  sense.  And  these  changes  have 
taken  place  only  because  public  opinion  changed.  Within 
my  memory  it  was  considered  a  shame  for  rich  people  not 
to  drive  out  with  four  horses  and  two  lackeys,  and  not  to 
have  a  lackey  or  chambermaid  to  dress  and  wash  them 
and  hold  the  vessel  for  them,  and  so  forth ;  and  now  it 
has  suddenly  become  a  shame  not  to  dress  oneself  and 
to  drive  out  with  lackeys.  All  these  changes  were  pro- 
duced by  public  opinion. 

Can  we  not  clearly  see  the  changes  which  are  being 
wrought  in  pubhc  opinion?  It  was  enough  for  the 
offence  which  justified  the  serf  right  to  be  destroyed 
twenty-five  years  ago,  in  order  that  public  opinion  should 
change  in  regard  to  what  is  praiseworthy  and  what 
shameful,  and  for  life  to  become  changed.  The  offence 
which  justifies  the  power  of  money  over  men  need  be 
destroyed,  and  pubhc  opinion  will  change  as  to  what  is 
praiseworthy  and  what  disgraceful,  and  life  will  change 
with  it. 

But  the  destruction  of  the  offence  of  the  justification  of 
the  money  power  and  change  of  public  opinion  in  this 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  327 

respect  are  rapidly  taking  place.  This  offence  is  trans- 
parent now,  and  barely  veils  the  truth.  We  need  but 
take  a  close  look  in  order  to  see  clearly  that  change  of 
public  opinion  which  not  only  must  take  place,  but  which 
has  already  taken  place,  though  it  is  still  unconscious  and 
has  not  been  given  a  name.  Let  an  ever  so  little  educated 
man  of  our  time  reflect  on  what  results  from  those  views 
of  the  world  which  he  professes,  in  order  that  he  may 
convince  himself  that  that  valuation  of  what  is  good  and 
what  bad,  what  praiseworthy  and  what  disgraceful,  by 
which  he  is  guided  in  life  from  inertia,  directly  contra- 
dicts his  whole  world  conception. 

A  man  of  our  time  need  but  for  a  minute,  renouncing 
his  life  which  goes  on  from  inertia,  look  at  it  from  one 
side  and  subject  it  to  the  valuation  which  flows  from  his 
whole  world  conception,  in  order  to  become  frightened  at 
that  determination  of  his  whole  life  which  results  from 
his  world  conception. 

Let  us  take  as  an  example  a  young  man  (in  young  men 
the  energy  of  life  is  stronger  and  self-consciousness  more 
hazy)  from  the  rich  classes,  professing  any  views  what- 
ever. Every  good  young  man  considers  it  a  shame  not  to 
help  an  old  man,  a  child,  a  woman ;  he  considers  it  a 
shame  in  a  common  affair  to  subject  to  danger  the  life 
or  health  of  another  man,  and  himself  to  avoid  it.  Every- 
body considers  it  a  shame  and  monstrous  to  do  what 
Schuyler  tells  the  Kirgizes  do  in  time  of  a  storm,  to  send 
the  women,  both  young  and  old,  out  into  the  storm  to 
hold  the  corners  of  the  tent,  while  they  themselves 
remain  sitting  in  the  tent  and  drinking  kumys;  every- 
body considers  it  a  shame  to  compel  a  feeble  man  to 
work  for  him;  a  still  greater  shame  during  a  danger, 
on  a  burning  ship  for  example,  for  the  strongest  to  push 
aside  the  weaker  and,  leaving  them  in  danger,  to  be  the 
first  to  climb  into  a  life-saving  boat,  and  so  forth.  All 
this  they  consider  shameful  and  they  will  never  do  that  in 


328  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

certain  exclusive  conditions;  but  in  every-day  life  just 
such  acts  and  even  much  worse  acts  are  hidden  from 
them  by  the  offence,  and  they  continue  to  do  them. 

They  need  but  stop  and  think,  in  order  that  they  may 
see  and  be  horrified. 

The  young  man  puts  on  a  fresh  shirt  every  day.  Who 
washes  it  at  the  river  ?  A  woman,  no  matter  in  what 
position  she  may  be,  who  is  old  enough  to  be  the  young 
man's  grandmother  or  mother,  and  who  often  is  sick. 
What  does  this  young  man  himself  call  him  who,  from 
mere  wantonness  to  change  his  shirt,  which  is  clean  as  it 
is,  sends  it  to  be  washed  by  a  woman  who  is  old  enough 
to  be  his  mother  ? 

The  young  man  keeps  horses  for  the  sake  of  foppish- 
ness, and  they  are  trained  in  at  the  risk  of  his  life  by  a 
man  who  is  old  enough  to  be  his  father  or  grandfather, 
while  the  young  man  mounts  them  only  when  all  danger 
is  past.  What  will  this  young  man  call  him  who,  get- 
ting himself  out  of  the  way,  puts  another  man  in  a 
dangerous  position  and  makes  use  of  this  risk  for  his  own 
pleasure  ? 

But  the  whole  hfe  of  the  wealthy  classes  is  composed 
of  a  series  of  such  acts.  Uneuduringly  hard  w^ork  of  old 
men,  children,  and  women,  and  acts  performed  by  others 
at  the  peril  of  their  lives,  not  that  we  may  be  able  to 
work,  but  for  our  lust,  fill  our  whole  life.  A  fisherman 
is  drowned  while  catching  fish  for  us ;  laundresses  catch 
colds  and  die ;  blacksmiths  grow  blind ;  factory  hands  get 
sick  and  are  ruined  by  the  machinery ;  woodchoppers  are 
crushed  by  trees ;  thatchers  fall  down  from  roofs  and  are 
killed ;  seamstresses  become  consumptive.  All  real  work 
is  done  with  the  loss  and  peril  of  life.  It  is  impossible 
to  conceal  and  not  see  this.  There  is  one  salvation  in 
this  situation,  one  way  out  from  it,  and  this  is,  for  a  man 
of  our  time,  in  accordance  with  his  own  conception  of  the 
world,  not  to  call  himself  a  rascal  and  a  coward,  who 


WHAT   SHALL    WE    DO    THEN?  329 

shoulders  the  labour  and  the  peril  of  hfe  upon  others, — 
to  take  from  people  only  what  is  necessary  for  life  and 
for  himself  to  bear  the  real  labour  with  the  loss  and  peril 
of  his  life. 

The  time  will  soon  come,  and  it  is  already  at  hand, 
when  it  will  be  a  disgrace  and  a  shame  to  eat  not  only 
a  dinner  of  five  courses,  served  by  lackeys,  but  also  one 
that  is  not  cooked  by  the  hosts  themselves ;  when  it  will 
be  a  shame  to  drive  fast  horses  and  even  in  a  hack,  so 
long  as  one  has  legs ;  in  week-days  to  put  on  garments, 
shoes,  and  gloves  in  which  it  is  impossible  to  work ;  to 
play  on  a  piano  costing  twelve  hundred  roubles,  or  even 
fifty  roubles,  when  others,  strangers,  are  working  for  me ; 
to  feed  milk  and  white  bread  to  the  dogs,  when  there  are 
people  who  have  no  bread  and  no  milk ;  to  burn  lamps 
and  candles  at  which  people  do  not  work,  to  make  fires 
in  stoves,  in  which  they  do  not  cook  food,  when  there  are 
people  who  have  no  illumination  and  no  fuel.  We  are 
inevitably  and  rapidly  marching  to  such  a  view.  We 
are  already  standing  on  the  borderland  of  this  new  life, 
and  the  establishment  of  this  new  view  of  life  is  a  matter 
of  public  opinion.  The  public  opinion  which  confirms 
such  a  view  on  life  is  being  rapidly  worked  out. 

Women  make  public  opinion,  and  women  are  in  our 
time  particularly  strong. 


CHAPTER   XL. 

As  it  says  in  the  Bible,  man  is  given  the  law  of  labour, 
and  woman  the  law  of  childbirth ;  although  we,  accord- 
ing to  our  science,  avons  change  tout  pa,  the  law  has 
remained  as  unchanged  for  man  and  for  woman  as  the 
liver  is  in  its  old  place,  and  a  departure  from  it  is  as 
much  as  ever  punished  by  inevitable  death. 

The  only  difference  is  this,  that  for  man,  for  all  in  gen- 
eral, the  departure  from  the  law  is  punished  by  death  in 
such  a  near  future  that  it  may  be  called  the  present, 
while  for  woman  the  departure  from  the  law  is  punished 
in  a  more  remote  future.  The  common  departure  from 
the  law  by  men  destroys  men  at  once ;  the  departure  of 
all  women  destroys  the  men  of  the  next  generation,  but 
the  departure  of  some  men  and  women  does  not  destroy 
the  human  race,  but  deprives  only  those  who  have 
departed  of  man's  rational  nature. 

Men's  departure  from  the  law  began  long  ago  in  those 
classes  which  could  exert  violence  on  others  and,  spread- 
ing all  the  time,  has  lasted  down  to  our  own  time  and  in 
our  time  has  reached  a  point  of  madness,  of  an  ideal 
which  consists  in  the  departure  from  the  law,  an  ideal 
expressed  by  Prince  Bldkhin  and  shared  by  Renan  and 
all  the  cultured  world,  —  that  machines  will  do  the  work, 
and  men  will  be  enjoying  bundles  of  nerves. 

There  has  hardly  existed  any  women's  departure  from 
the  law.  It  found  its  expression  in  prostitution  and  in 
the  frequent  crimes  of  the  killing  of  the  foetus.  The 
women  of  the  circle  of  wealtl.y  men  fulfilled  their  law, 
when  the  men  did  not  fulfil  theirs,  and  so  the  women 

830 


WHAT   SHALL   WE    DO   THEN?  331 

became  stronger  and  continue  to  rule,  and  must  rule,  the 
men  who  have  departed  from  the  law,  and,  therefore, 
have  lost  their  reason. 

They  generally  say  that  woman  (the  Parisian  woman, 
generally  the  childless  woman)  has  become  so  fascinating, 
by  making  use  of  all  the  means  of  civilization,  that  she 
has  by  means  of  this  fascination  taken  possession  of  man. 
That  is  not  only  untrue,  but  the  very  opposite  is  the  fact. 
It  is  not  the  childless  woman  who  has  taken  possession 
of  the  man,  but  the  mother  who  has  fulfilled  her  law, 
while  man  did  not  fulfil  his. 

But  the  woman  who  becomes  artificially  childless  and 
fascinates  man  with  her  shoulders  and  looks  is  not  the 
woman  who  rules  man,  but  a  woman  debauched  by  man, 
who  has  descended  to  the  level  of  the  debauched  man,  a 
woman  who,  like  him,  has  departed  from  the  law,  and  so, 
like  him,  loses  every  meaning  of  life. 

From  this  mistake  results  that  remarkable  stupidity 
which  is  called  women's  rights. 

The  formula  of  these  women's  rights  is  like  this :  "  Oh, 
you  man,"  says  the  woman,  "have  departed  from  your 
law  of  real  work,  and  you  want  us  to  bear  the  brunt  of 
the  real  work.  Yes,  if  that  is  so,  we  shall  know  how  like 
you  to  do  that  semblance  of  work  which  you  do  in  banks, 
ministries,  universities,  academies,  studies,  and  we  want, 
like  you,  under  the  form  of  the  division  of  labour,  to 
make  use  of  the  labour  of  others  and  live  gratifying  our 
whims  only." 

This  they  say,  and  they  show  in  fact  that  they  know 
as  well,  if  not  better,  than  the  men  how  to  do  this  sem- 
blance of  work. 

The  so-called  woman  question  arose,  and  could  have 
arisen  only  among  men  who  have  departed  from  the  law 
of  true  work. 

We  need  only  to  return  to  it,  and  this  question  will 
not  exist. 


332  WHAT    SHALL    WE   DO    THEN? 

Having  her  own,  unquestionable,  inevitable  work, 
woman  can  never  demand  the  superfluous,  false  work  of 
the  men  of  the  rich  classes.  Not  one  woman  of  a  real 
workman  will  demand  the  right  to  participate  in  his 
labour,  whether  in  the  mines  or  in  the  field.  She  could 
demand  a  participation  in  the  imaginary  labour  alone  of 
the  men  of  wealthy  classes. 

The  woman  of  our  circle  has  been  stronger  than  man, 
and  even  now  is  stronger,  not  by  her  fascination,  not  by 
her  agility  to  do  the  same  Pharisaical  semblance  of  work 
as  men,  but  because  she  has  not  come  out  from  under 
the  law,  because  she  has,  at  the  peril  of  her  life,  with  the 
tension  of  her  uttermost  strength,  borne  that  real,  true 
labour  from  which  the  man  of  the  wealthy  classes  has 
emancipated  himself. 

But  within  my  memory  there  began  a  woman's  de- 
parture from  the  law,  that  is,  her  fall,  and  within  my 
memory  it  has  been  growing  more  and  more. 

Having  lost  the  law,  woman  has  come  to  believe  that 
her  strength  lies  in  the  fascination  of  her  charms,  or  in 
the  agility  of  the  Pharisaical  semblance  of  mental  la- 
bour. 

Children  interfere  with  either.  And  so,  with  the  aid 
of  science  (science  is  always  prepared  for  everything 
abominable),  it  has  happened  within  my  memory  that 
among  the  wealthy  classes  there  have  appeared  dozens 
of  means  for  the  destruction  of  the  foetus,  and  instruments 
for  the  destruction  of  childbirth  have  become  a  usual 
appurtenance  of  the  toilet ;  and  so  the  women-mothers  of 
the  wealthy  classes,  who  had  held  the  power  in  their 
hands,  are  letting  it  out  in  order  not  to  fall  behind  the 
street-walkers  and  to  become  like  them. 

The  evil  has  become  widely  disseminated,  and  with 
every  day  spreads  farther  and  farther,  and  soon  it  will 
embrace  all  the  women  of  the  wealthy  classes,  and  then 
they  will  be  equal  with  the  men,  and  with  them  will  lose 


WHAT    SHALL    WE    DO    THEN  t  333 

the  rational  meaning  of  life,  and  then  there  will  no  longer 
be  any  return  for  that  class.     But  there  is  still  time. 

However,  there  are  still  more  women  than  men  who 
fulfil  their  law,  and  so  there  still  are  among  them  rational 
beings,  and  so  the  possibility  of  salvation  is  stiU  in  the 
hands  of  a  few  women  of  our  circle. 

Oh,  if  these  women  comprehended  their  significance 
and  their  strength,  and  used  it  in  the  work  of  saving 
their  husbands,  brothers,  and  children,  in  saving  all  men  ! 

Women,  mothers,  of  the  wealthy  classes  !  The  salva- 
tion of  the  men  of  our  class  from  the  evils  they  suffer 
from  is  only  in  your  hands !  Not  the  women  who  are 
busy  with  their  waists,  bustles,  hair-dressing,  and  fasci- 
nation for  men,  and  against  their  will,  by  oversight,  in 
despair  bring  forth  children  and  turn  them  over  to  wet- 
nurses,  nor  those  who  attend  all  kinds  of  lectures  and 
talk  of  psychomotor  centres  and  differentiation,  and  also 
try  to  free  themselves  from  bearing  children,  in  order  not 
to  have  any  obstacle  in  their  dulling  of  sensibilities, 
which  they  call  development,  but  those  in  whose  hands, 
more  than  in  those  of  anybody  else,  lies  the  salvation  of 
the  men  of  our  class  from  the  calamities  which  are 
overwhelming  them.  You,  women  and  mothers,  who 
consciously  submit  to  the  law  of  God,  you  alone  in  our 
unfortunate,  monstrous  circle,  which  has  lost  the  human 
semblance,  know  the  whole  real  meaning  of  life  according 
to  God's  will.  You  alone  can  by  your  example  show  to 
men  that  happiness  of  life  in  the  submission  to  the  will 
of  God,  of  which  they  deprive  themselves.  You  alone 
know  those  raptures  and  joys  which  take  hold  of  your 
whole  being,  and  that  bliss  which  is  predetermined  for 
man  who  does  not  depart  from  the  law  of  God.  You 
know  the  happiness  of  love  for  your  husbands,  a  happi- 
ness which  does  not  come  to  an  end,  nor  break  off,  like 
all  others,  but  forms  the  beginning  of  a  new  happiness  of 
love  for  the  babe.     You  alone  know,  when  you  are  simple 


334  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO    THEN? 

and  submissive  to  the  will  of  God,  not  that  playful,  parade 
work  in  uniforms  and  illuminated  halls,  which  the  men 
of  your  circle  call  work,  but  that  true  work  which  God 
has  intended  for  men,  and  you  know  the  true  rewards  for 
it  and  the  bliss  which  it  gives. 

You  know  this,  when  after  the  joys  of  love  you  with 
agitation,  fear,  and  hope  wait  for  that  agonizing  state  of 
pregnancy,  which  will  make  you  sick  for  nine  months, 
and  will  bring  you  to  the  brink  of  death  and  to  in- 
tolerable sufferings  and  pains;  you  know  the  conditions 
of  true  labour,  when  with  joy  you  await  the  approach 
and  intensification  of  the  most  terrible  agonies,  after 
which  there  comes  bliss  which  is  known  to  you  alone. 

You  know  this,  when  immediately  after  these  pains 
you  without  rest,  without  interruption,  pass  over  to 
another  series  of  labour  and  of  sufferings,  to  nursing, 
when  you  at  once  reject  and  submit  to  your  duty, 
to  your  feeling,  the  strongest  human  necessity,  that  of 
sleep  (which,  according  to  the  proverb,  is  dearer  than 
father  and  mother),  and  for  months  and  years  at  a  time 
do  not  sleep  through  a  single  night,  and  frequently  stay 
awake  whole  nights  and  with  benumbed  arms  walk  about 
and  rock  your  sick  babe,  who  is  tearing  your  heart 
asunder. 

And  when  you  do  all  this,  unapproved  and  unseen  by 
any  one,  expecting  no  praise  and  no  reward  from  any  one, 
when  you  do  this  not  as  an  exploit,  but  as  the  servant  of 
the  gospel  parable  who  comes  back  from  the  field,  think- 
ing that  you  have  but  done  what  is  right,  you  know 
what  is  the  false  parade  work  for  people  and  what  the 
real  work  for  the  fulfilment  of  God's  will,  the  indications 
of  which  you  feel  in  your  heart. 

You  know  that,  if  you  are  a  real  mother,  it  is  not 
enough  that  no  one  has  seen  your  labour  and  has  praised 
you  for  it,  and  all  have  merely  found  that  that  was  the 
way  it  ought   to  have  been,  but  that  those   for  whom 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN?  335 

you  have  laboured  will  not  only  fail  to  thank  you,  but 
also  frequently  torment  and  reproach  you,  —  and  with  the 
next  baby  you  do  the  same  again  :  again  you  suffer,  again 
you  endure  the  unseen,  terrible  labour,  and  again  you  do 
not  await  any  reward  from  any  one,  and  feel  the  same 
satisfaction. 

In  your  hands,  if  you  are  such  a  woman,  must  be  the 
power  over  men,  and  in  your  hands  is  salvation.  With 
every  day  your  number  is  diminishing:  some  are  busy 
fascinating  men  and  becoming  street-walkers ;  others  are 
busy  competing  with  men  in  their  false,  trifling  affairs ; 
others  again,  even  before  becoming  untrue  to  their  calling, 
in  their  consciousness  already  renounce  it :  they  perform 
all  the  exploits  of  the  woman  as  mother,  but  they  do  SO 
by  accident,  with  murmurs,  with  envy  toward  the  free 
women  who  do  not  bear  children,  and  they  deprive  them- 
selves of  the  only  reward  for  them,  —  of  the  inner 
consciousness  of  the  fulfilment  of  God's  will,  —  and,  in- 
stead of  satisfaction,  suffer  from  that  which  forms  their 
happiness. 

We  are  enmeshed  in  our  false  life,  we  the  men  of 
our  circle,  we  have  all  of  us,  to  a  person,  so  lost  the 
meaning  of  life  that  there  is  no  distinction  between  us. 
Having  rolled  the  whole  burden,  the  whole  danger  of 
life,  on  the  necks  of  others,  we  are  unable  to  call  our- 
selves by  our  real  name,  which  befits  people  who  cause 
others  to  perish  in  our  place  for  the  purpose  of  earning  a 
living,  —  scoundrels,  cowards. 

But  among  women  there  still  exists  a  distinction. 
There  are  women  who  are  human  beings,  women  who 
represent  the  highest  manifestation  of  man,  and  women 
who  are  whores.  This  distinction  will  be  made  by 
future  generations,  and  we  cannot  help  making  it  our- 
selves. ' 

Every  woman,  no  matter  how  she  may  be  dressed, 
what  she  may  call  herself,  or  how  refined  she  may  be,  is 


336  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

a  whore  if  she  does  Dot  abstain  from  sexual  intercourse, 
and  yet  abstains  from  childbirth. 

And  no  matter  how  fallen  a  woman  may  be,  if  she 
consciously  abandons  herself  to  bearing  children,  she  per- 
forms the  best,  the  highest  act  of  life,  in  that  she  is  doing 
God's  will,  and  she  has  no  one  above  her. 

If  you  are  such,  you  will  not  say  after  two,  nor  after 
twenty  children,  that  it  is  enough  to  bear  children,  just  as 
a  labourer  of  fifty  years  will  not  say  that  it  is  enough  for 
him  to  work,  so  long  as  he  continues  to  eat  and  sleep, 
and  his  muscles  demand  for  work ;  if  you  are  such,  you 
will  not  throw  your  care  of  nursing  and  tending  on  the 
children  on  another  mother,  just  as  a  labourer  will  not 
permit  a  stranger  to  finish  his  work  which  he  has  begun 
and  has  almost  finished,  because  into  this  work  you  place 
your  whole  life,  and  so  your  hfe  is  fuller  and  happier  in 
proportion  as  your  work  is  greater. 

When  you  are  such,  —  and  there  are  such,  luckily  for 
men,  —  the  same  law  of  the  fulfilment  of  God's  will,  by 
which  you  are  guided  in  your  life,  will  be  applied  by  you 
to  the  life  of  your  husband,  and  your  children,  and  your 
near  relatives. 

If  you  are  such  a  woman  acd  know  from  your  own 
case  that  only  a  self-sacrificing,  invisible,  unrewarded 
labour  at  the  peril  of  life  and  to  the  last  limits  of  tension, 
for  the  lives  of  others,  is  that  calling  of  man  which  gives 
him  satisfaction  and  strength,  then  you  will  make  the 
same  demands  on  others,  encourage  your  husband  to 
the  same  work,  measure  and  esteem  the  worth  of  men 
by  the  same  work,  and  prepare  your  children  to  do  the 
same  work. 

Only  that  mother  who  looks  upon  childbirth  as  a  dis- 
agreeable incident,  and  upon  her  pleasures  of  love,  com- 
forts of  life,  of  culture,  of  society  as  upon  the  meaning  of 
life,  will  bring  up  her  children  to  have  as  much  pleasure 
as  possible  and  to  enjoy  them  as  much  as  possible,  and 


WHAT   SHALL    WE   DO   THEN?  337 

will  feed  them  on  sweet  things,  will  dress  and  artificially 
amuse  them,  and  will  teach  them,  not  what  would  make 
them  capable  of  self-sacrificing  man's  and  woman's  work, 
which  is  connected  with  peril  of  life  and  the  uttermost  ten- 
sion, but  what  will  free  them  from  this  labour,  — everything 
which  will  give  them  diplomas  and  the  possibility  to  keep 
away  from  work.  Only  such  a  woman,  who  has  lost  the 
meaning  of  hfe,  will  sympathize  with  that  deceptive,  false 
male  labour  which  enables  her  husband,  who  has  freed 
himself  from  human  duties,  to  enjoy  with  her  the  labours 
of  others.  Only  such  a  woman  will  choose  the  same 
kind  of  a  husband  for  her  daughter  and  will  value  peo- 
ple not  for  what  they  are  in  themselves,  but  for  what 
is  connected  with  them,  for  their  position,  money,  and 
knowledge  how  to  make  use  of  the  labours  of  others. 

But  a  real  mother,  who  in  fact  knows  the  will  of  God, 
will  prepare  her  children  to  do  this  will  also.  For  such 
a  mother  it  will  be  a  suffering  to  see  her  overfed,  pam- 
pered, dressed-up  baby,  because  all  this,  she  knows, 
makes  harder  the  fulfilment  of  God's  will,  as  it  is  known 
to  her. 

Such  a  mother  wiU  not  teach  her  children  what  will  give 
them  the  possibihty  of  the  offence  of  freeing  themselves 
from  labour,  but  what  will  help  them  to  bear  the  work 
of  hfe.  She  will  not  have  to  ask  what  to  teach  them,  for 
what  to  prepare  them:  she  knows  what  the  calling  of 
men  consists  in,  and  so  she  knows  what  to  teach  her 
children  and  for  what  to  prepare  them.  Such  a  woman 
will  not  only  refrain  from  encouraging  her  husband  in 
his  deceptive,  false  work,  which  has  for  its  aim  nothing 
but  the  exploitation  of  the  labour  of  others,  but  will  also 
look  with  disgust  and  horror  upon  such  an  activity,  which 
serves  as  a  double  offence  for  her  children.  Such  a 
woman  will  not  choose  a  husband  for  her  daughter  on 
account  of  the  whiteness  of  his  hands  and  refinement 
of  his  manners,  but,  knowing  full  well  what  work  and 


338  WHAT   SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

what  deception  are,  will,  beginning  with  her  husband, 
always  and  at  all  times  respect  and  appreciate  in  men 
and  demand  of  them  true  work  with  loss  and  peril,  and 
will  despise  that  false,  parade  work,  which  has  for  its  aim 
the  freeing  of  oneseK  from  true  work. 

Let  not  the  woman,  who,  renouncing  woman's  calling, 
wants  to  enjoy  her  rights,  say  that  such  a  view  of  life  is 
impossible  for  a  mother,  that  a  mother  is  too  closely  con- 
nected by  love  with  her  children  to  be  able  to  refuse 
them  sweetmeats,  amusements,  dresses,  not  to  be  afraid 
for  her  unprovided  children,  if  her  husband  has  no  fortune 
or  no  secure  position,  and  not  to  be  afraid  for  the  fate  of 
the  marriageable  daughters  and  sons,  if  they  have  received 
no  education. 

All  this  is  an  untruth,  a  most  glaring  untruth ! 

The  true  mother  will  never  say  that.  You  cannot 
refrain  from  the  desire  to  give  your  children  candy,  and 
toys,  and  taking  them  to  the  circus  ?  But  you  do  not 
give  them  spurge-laurel,  do  not  allow  them  to  get  into  a 
boat  by  themselves,  and  do  not  take  them  to  a  caf^ 
chantant.  Why  can  you  refrain  yourself  there,  and 
cannot  do  so  here? 

Because  you  are  telling  an  untruth. 

You  say  that  you  love  your  children  so  much  that  you 
are  afraid  for  their  hves,  that  you  are  afraid  of  hunger 
and  cold,  and  so  value  highly  the  security  which  is  fur- 
nished you  by  your  husband's  position,  which  you  recog- 
nize as  irregular. 

You  are  so  much  afraid  of  those  future  accidents  and 
calamities  for  your  children,  which  are  still  far  removed 
and  doubtful,  that  you  encourage  your  husband  in  what 
you  do  not  recognize  the  justice  of;  but  what  are  you 
doing  now  in  the  present  conditions  of  your  life  to  save 
your  children  from  the  unfortunate  accidents  of  your 
present  life? 

Do  you  pass  a  large  part  of  the  day  with  your  chil- 


WHAT   SHALL   WE   BO   THEN?  '339 

dren  ?  You  do  well  if  you  give  them  one-tenth  of  your 
time. 

The  remaining  time  they  are  in  the  hands  of  hired 
strangers  who  are  frequently  taken  from  the  street,  or  in 
institutions,  abandoned  to  the  perils  of  physical  and  moral 
infections. 

Your  children  eat  and  receive  nourishment.  Who 
prepares  the  dinner,  and  out  of  what  is  it  prepared  ?  As 
a  rule  you  do  not  know.  By  whom  are  moral  concepts 
instilled  in  them  ?  You  do  not  know  this,  either.  So  do 
not  say  that  you  are  suffering  evil  for  the  good  of  your 
children,  —  that  is  untrue.  You  are  doing  wrong,  because 
you  love  it. 

A  true  mother,  who  sees  in  childbirth  and  the  bringing 
up  of  her  children  her  self-sacrificing  calling  of  life  and 
fulfilment  of  God's  will,  will  not  say  so. 

She  will  not  say  so,  because  she  knows  that  it  is  not 
her  business  to  make  of  her  children  what  she  or  the 
reigning  tendency  may  wish,  that  the  children,  that  is, 
the  future  generations,  are  the  greatest  and  holiest  thing 
which  is  given  men  to  see  in  reality,  and  that  her  minis- 
tration with  her  whole  being  to  this  holiness  is  her  life. 

She  knows  herself,  being  constantly  between  Hfe  and 
death,  and  living  a  barely  glimmering  life,  that  life 
and  death  are  not  her  business,  that  her  business  is  to 
minister  to  life,  and  so  she  will  not  seek  any  distant 
paths  of  this  ministration,  but  will  only  keep  from  de- 
parting from  those  that  are  near. 

Such  a  mother  will  herself  bear  children  and  nurse 
them,  will  above  all  else  herself  feed  her  children  and 
prepare  food  for  them,  and  sew,  and  wash,  and  teach  her 
children,  and  sleep  and  talk  with  them,  because  in  this 
she  assumes  her  work  of  life  to  consist.  She  knows  that 
the  security  of  any  hfe  is  in  work  and  in  the  ability  to 
do  it,  and  so  will  not  seek  for  her  children's  security  in 
her  husband's  money,  and  in  the  diplomas  of  her  children, 


340  WHAT    SHALL   WE   DO   THEN? 

but  will  educate  in  them  the  same  self-sacrificing  fulfil- 
ment of  God's  will  which  she  knows  in  herself,  —  the 
ability  to  endure  labour  with  the  loss  and  the  peril  of 
life.  Such  a  mother  will  not  ask  others  what  she  has 
to  do ;  she  will  know  everything  and  will  not  be  afraid 
of  anything,  and  she  will  always  be  calm,  because  she 
will  know  that  she  has  fulfilled  everything  which  she  is 
called  to  do. 

If  there  can  be  any  doubt  for  a  man  and  for  a  childless 
woman  as  to  the  path  on  which  is  to  be  the  fulfilment  of 
God's  will,  for  a  mother  this  path  is  firmly  and  clearly 
defined,  and  if  she  has  humbly  fulfilled  it  in  the  sim- 
phcity  of  her  soul,  she  stands  on  the  highest  point  of 
perfection  which  a  human  being  can  reach,  and  becomes 
for  all  men  that  complete  sample  of  the  fulfilment  of 
God's  will,  toward  which  all  men   strive  at  all  times. 

Only  a  mother  can  before  her  death  calmly  say  to 
Him  who  has  sent  her  into  the  world,  and  to  Him  whom 
she  has  served  by  bringing  forth  and  educating  her  chil- 
dren, whom  she  loves  more  than  herself,  after  she  has 
done  her  appointed  task  in  serving  Him:  "To-day  dost 
Thou  release  Thy  slave."  But  this  is  that  highest  per- 
fection toward  which,  as  toward  the  highest  good,  all  men 
strive. 

It  is  such  women,  who  have  fulfilled  their  woman's 
calling,  that  rule  the  ruling  men  and  serve  as  a  guiding 
star  to  men;  such  women  establish  public  opinion  and 
prepare  new  generations  of  men;  and  so  these  women 
have  in  their  hands  the  highest  power,  the  power  of 
saving  people  from  the  existing  and  menacing  evils  of  our 
time. 

Yes,  women  and  mothers,  in  your  hands,  more  than  in 
any  other,  is  the  salvation  of  the  world. 

February  14, 1886. 


ON    THE    MOSCOW    CENSUS 

1882 


ON    THE    MOSCOW    CENSUS 


The  census  has  a  scientific  purpose.  The  census  is  a 
sociological  investigation.  But  the  aim  of  sociology  is 
men's  happiness.  This  science  and  its  method  differs 
markedly  from  all  the  other  sciences. 

Its  peculiarity  consists  in  this,  that  the  sociological 
investigations  are  not  carried  on  by  the  learned  in  their 
cabinets,  observatories,  and  laboratories,  but  by  two  thou- 
sand people  from  society.  Another  peculiarity  of  it  is 
this,  that  the  investigations  of  other  sciences  are  not 
carried  on  on  Hving  men,  while  here  they  are.  A  third 
peculiarity  of  it  is  this,  that  the  aim  of  any  other  science 
is  knowledge,  while  here  it  is  the  good  of  men.  The 
nebular  spots  may  be  investigated  by  one  man,  but  here 
two  thousand  people  are  needed.  The  purpose  of  the 
investigation  of  the  nebular  spots  is  to  find  out  everything 
about  the  nebular  spots ;  the  aim  of  the  investigation  of 
the  population  is  to  deduce  laws  of  sociology  and  on  the 
basis  of  these  laws  better  to  establish  the  lives  of  men. 
It  makes  no  difference  to  the  nebular  spots  whether  they 
are  investigated  or  not,  and  they  are  in  no  hurry  and  will 
be  in  no  hurry  for  a  long  time  to  come ;  but  it  is  not  all 
the  same  for  the  inhabitants  of  Moscow,  especially  for 
those  unfortunates  who  form  the  most  interesting  subject 
of  the  science  of  sociology. 

The  census-taker  comes  to  a  lodging-house,  and  he  finds 

343 


344  ON   THE   MOSCOW   CENSUS 

in  the  basement  a  man  who  is  dying  of  insufficient  nour- 
ishment, and  asks  him  poHtely  for  his  calling,  name, 
patronymic,  and  kind  of  occupation,  and,  after  some  hesi- 
tation as  to  whether  he  should  enter  him  in  his  list  as 
living,  he  enters  him  and  goes  on. 

Thus  will  two  thousand  young  men  walk  about.  That 
is  not  good. 

Science  does  its  work,  and  society,  which  in  the  persons 
of  the  two  thousand  men  is  called  to  cooperate  with 
science,  must  do  its  work.  The  statistician,  who  makes 
his  inferences  from  figures,  may  be  indifferent  to  people, 
but  we,  the  census-takers,  who  see  these  people  and  have 
no  scientific  infatuation,  cannot  help  but  have  a  human 
interest  in  them.  Science  does  its  work,  and,  as  regards 
its  aims  in  the  distant  future,  does  a  work  which  is  useful 
and  necessary  for  us. 

For  the  men  of  science  it  is  possible  to  say  calmly  that 
in  the  year  1882  there  are  so  many  paupers,  so  many 
prostitutes,  so  many  children  without  attention.  It  may 
say  so  calmly  and  proudly,  because  it  knows  that  the 
assertion  of  this  fact  leads  to  the  elucidation  of  socio- 
logical laws,  and  that  the  elucidation  of  sociological  laws 
leads  to  the  improved  state  of  society.  But  how  would 
it  be,  if  we,  the  laymen,  should  say  :  "  You  are  perishing 
in  debauchery,  you  are  starving,  you  are  wasting  away, 
you  are  killing  one  another ;  but  let  not  that  grieve  you : 
when  all  of  you  shall  have  perished  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  like  you,  then,  perhaps,  science  will  arrange 
everything  beautifully."  For  the  man  of  science  the 
census  has  its  interest :  for  us  it  has  an  entirely  different 
interest.  For  society  the  interest  and  significance  of  the 
census  consists  in  this,  that  it  gives  it  a  mirror  in  which, 
willy  nilly,  society  and  each  of  us  can  see  himself. 

The  figures  and  the  deductions  will  be  the  mirror.  It 
is  possible  not  to  read  them,  just  as  it  is  possible  to  turn 
away  from  a   mirror.     It  is  possible  to  cast  a  passing 


ON   THE   MOSCOW   CENSUS  345 

glance  into  the  mirror,  or  to  look  into  it  from  near  by. 
To  take  the  census,  as  a  thousand  men  are  doing  now,  is 
to  take  a  close  look  into  the  mirror. 

What  is  the  census  which  is  taking  place  now  for  us 
Muscovites  who  are  not  men  of  science  ?  It  is  two  things. 
In  the  first  place,  that  we  shall  certainly  find  out  that 
among  us,  among  tens  of  thousands  of  men  spending  tens 
of  thousands  of  roubles,  there  live  tens  of  thousands  of 
men  without  bread,  clothing,  or  shelter;  in  the  second 
place,  that  our  brothers  and  sons  will  go  to  see  this  and 
calmly  record  in  columns  how  many  there  are  that  are 
dying  from  hunger  and  cold. 

Both  things  are  very  bad. 

All  cry  about  the  flimsiness  of  our  social  structure, 
about  its  exclusive  condition,  about  its  revolutionary 
mood.  Where  is  the  root  of  everything?  To  what  do 
the  revolutionists  point?  To  the  poverty,  the  unequal 
distribution  of  wealth.  To  what  do  the  conservatives 
point  ?  To  the  decay  of  moral  foundations.  If  the  opin- 
ion of  the  revolutionists  is  correct,  what  must  we  do  ? 
Diminish  poverty  and  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth. 
If  the  opinion  of  the  conservatives  is  correct,  that  all  the 
evil  is  due  to  the  decay  of  moral  principles,  what  can  be 
more  immoral  and  corrupt  than  the  consciously  indiffer- 
ent contemplation  of  human  misfortunes  with  the  mere 
purpose  of  recording  them  ?  What  must  we  do,  then  ? 
We  must  add  to  the  census  the  work  of  a  brotherly  com- 
munion of  the  rich,  the  leisurely,  and  the  enlightened  with 
the  poor,  the  oppressed,  and  the  ignorant. 

Science  is  doing  its  work,  —  let  us  do  our  work.  This 
is  what  we  will  do.  In  the  first  place,  we,  who  are  busy 
with  the  census,  the  managers,  census-takers,  will  form 
for  ourselves  a  clear  idea  of  what  we  are  doing,  —  we  will 
gain  a  clear  idea  as  to  why  and  over  what  we  are  making 
the  investigations  :  over  men,  and  that  men  may  be  happy. 
No  matter  how  a  man  may  look  at  life,  he  will  agree  that 


346  ON   THE   MOSCOW   CENSUS 

there  is  nothing  more  important  than  human  life,  and 
that  there  is  no  more  important  business  than  the  removal 
of  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  development  of  hfe,  than 
aiding  it. 

In  the  Gospel  we  find  expressed,  with  striking  boldness, 
but  with  definiteness  and  clearness  for  all,  the  thought 
that  the  relations  of  men  to  poverty,  to  human  sufferings, 
is  the  root,  the  foundation  of  everything. 

He  who  clothes  the  naked,  feeds  the  hungry,  and  visits 
the  prisoners  has  clothed  me,  fed  me,  visited  me,  that  is, 
has  done  work  for  what  is  most  important  in  the 
world. 

No  matter  how  a  man  may  look  at  things,  everybody 
knows  that  this  is  the  most  important  business  in  the 
world. 

And  we  must  not  forget  this,  and  permit  any  other 
considerations  to  veil  from  us  the  most  important  busi- 
ness of  our  life.  We  will  record  and  take  the  census,  but 
we  will  not  forget  that,  if  we  meet  a  naked  and  hungry 
man,  it  is  more  important  to  help  him  than  to  attend  to 
the  most  important  investigations  and  discoveries  of  all  the 
possible  sciences,  that,  if  the  question  arose  whether  we 
should  busy  ourselves  with  an  old  woman  who  had  not 
had  anything  to  eat  for  two  days,  or  ruin  the  whole  work 
of  the  census,  we  should  let  the  census  go  to  perdition, 
if  only  we  can  feed  the  old  woman.  The  census-taking 
will  be  longer  and  harder,  but  in  the  quarters  of  the  poor 
we  cannot  pass  by  people  and  merely  record  them,  without 
caring  for  them  or  trying  to  help  them  according  to  our 
strength  and  moral  sensitiveness.  So  much  in  the  first 
place. 

In  the  second  place,  this  is  what  we  ought  to  do ;  we, 
who  are  not  taking  part  in  the  census,  let  us  not  be  angry 
at  being  disturbed ;  let  us  understand  that  this  census  is 
very  useful  for  us ;  that,  if  it  is  not  a  cure,  it  is  at  least 
an  attempt  at  investigating  a  disease,  for  which  we  ought 


ON  THE  MOSCOW  CENSUS        347 

to  be  thankful,  and  which  ought  to  serve  us  as  an  occasion 
for  trying  to  cure  ourselves  a  httle  bit.  Let  us  all,  who 
are  being  recorded,  try  and  make  use  of  the  only  oppor- 
tunity offered  us  in  ten  years  for  cleaning  up  a  little :  let 
us  not  counteract  the  census,  but  help  it,  namely,  in  the 
sense  of  giving  it  not  the  cruel  character  of  a  probing  of 
a  hopeless  patient,  but  that  of  a  cure  and  convalescence. 
Indeed,  here  is  a  singular  chance :  eighty  energetic,  cul- 
tured men,  having  in  hand  two  thousand  young  men  of 
the  same  character,  are  making  the  round  of  the  whole 
of  Moscow,  and  will  not  leave  out  a  single  man  in  Mos- 
cow, without  entering  into  personal  relations  with  him. 
All  the  sores  of  society,  all  the  sores  of  poverty,  debauch- 
ery, ignorance,  —  all  of  them  will  be  laid  bare.  Well, 
shall  we  stop  at  this  ? 

The  census-takers  will  make  the  round  of  Moscow,  will 
indiscriminately  enter  into  their  lists  the  overweening, 
the  satisfied,  and  the  calm,  the  perishing  and  the  ruined, 
and  the  curtain  will  fall.  The  census-takers,  —  our 
brothers  and  sons,  —  the  youths,  will  see  all  this.  They 
will  say,  "  Yes,  our  life  is  very  detestable  and  incurable," 
and  with  this  consciousness  will  continue  to  hve  with  us, 
expecting  a  remedy  of  the  evil  from  this  or  that  external 
force.  But  the  ruined  will  continue  to  die  in  their  ruin, 
and  the  perishing  will  continue  to  perish.  No,  we  had 
better  understand  that  science  has  its  business,  and  we, 
on  the  occasion  of  the  census,  our  own  business,  and  let 
us  not  cover  ourselves  with  the  raised  curtain,  but  let  us 
make  use  of  the  opportunity,  in  order  to  remove  the 
greatest  evil  of  the  dissociation  between  us  and  the  poor, 
and  let  us  establish  a  communion  and  the  business  of 
mending  the  evil,  the  misfortunes,  the  poverty,  and  the 
ignorance,  and  the  still  greater  misfortune,  our  own,  of 
the  indifference  and  aimlessness  of  our  Hfe. 

I  already  hear  the  habitual  remark :  "  All  this  is  very 
nice,  all  this  is  ranting ;  but  tell  us  what  to  do  and  how 


348  ON  THE   MOSCOW   CENSUS 

to  do  it."  Before  telling  what  to  do,  I  must  say  what 
not  to  do.  Above  all,  if  something  sensible  is  to  come  of 
all  this  activity  of  society,  it  is,  in  my  opinion,  necessary 
that  no  society  be  formed,  that  there  be  no  publicity, 
no  collections  of  funds  by  means  of  b^Us,  bazars,  and 
theatres ;  that  there  be  no  announcements :  "  Prince  A. 
has  contributed  one  thousand  roubles,  and  Honorary  Citi- 
zen B.,  three  thousand  roubles ; "  that  there  be  no  assem- 
blies, no  reports,  and  no  writing,  especially  no  writing; 
that  there  be  not  even  a  shadow  of  any  institution,  either 
governmental  or  philanthropic. 

In  my  opinion,  this  is  what  we  ought  to  do  at  once : 
first,  all  those  who  agree  with  me  ought  to  go  to  the  man- 
agers, ask  them  to  point  out  the  poorest  districts  in  their 
wards,  the  poorest  tenements,  and  go  with  the  census- 
takers,  on  the  twenty-third,  the  twenty-fourth,  and  the 
twenty-fifth,  through  these  districts,  enter  into  relations 
with  those  who  live  in  them,  and  retain  these  rela- 
tions with  the  people  who  are  in  want  of  aid,  and  work 
with  them. 

Secondly:  the  managers  and  census-takers  are  to  pay 
attention  to  the  denizens  who  demand  assistance,  and 
work  for  them,  and  point  them  out  to  those  who  want 
to  work  for  them.  But  I  shall  be  asked  what  is  meant 
by  working  for  them.  I  shall  answer:  Doing  good  to 
them.  Not  giving  them  money,  but  doing  them  good. 
By  the  words  "  to  do  good  "  people  generally  understand 
giving  money.  But,  according  to  my  opinion,  to  do  good 
and  give  money  not  only  are  not  the  same,  but  are  two 
entirely  different,  and  generally  opposite,  things.  Money 
is  in  itself  an  evil,  and  so  he  who  gives  money  gives  an 
evil.  The  delusion  that  giving  money  means  doing  good 
is  due  to  this,  that  for  the  most  part  a  man  who  does 
good  rids  himself  of  the  evil  and  at  the  same  time  of  his 
money.  And  so  giving  money  is  only  a  sign  that  man  is 
beginning  to  rid  himself  of  evil.     To  do  good  means  to 


OK   THE   MOSCOW    CENSUS  349 

do  what  is  good  for  man.  To  find  out  what  is  good  for 
man,  we  must  get  into  human,  that  is,  amicable,  relations 
with  him.  And  so,  to  do  good  it  is  not  money  that  is 
needed,  but,  first  of  all,  the  ability  at  least  for  a  time  to 
renounce  the  conventionalities  of  our  life,  not  to  be  afraid 
to  soil  our  boots  and  garments,  nor  to  be  afraid  of  bed- 
bugs and  lice,  nor  of  typhoid,  diphtheria,  or  smallpox ;  we 
must  be  able  to  sit  down  on  the  cot  of  a  ragged  feUow 
and  talk  with  him  so  intimately  that  he  will  feel  that  the 
talker  respects  and  loves  him,  and  is  not  acting  and  ad- 
miring himself.  That  this  may  be  possible,  a  man  must 
look  for  the  meaning  of  life  outside  himself.  This  is 
what  is  needed  that  there  should  be  the  good,  and  this 
it  is  difficult  to  find. 

When  the  thought  came  to  me  of  helping  in  the  census, 
I  talked  with  a  few  of  the  rich  about  it,  and  I  saw  how 
glad  the  rich  were  of  the  opportunity  of  getting  rid  of 
their  money,  of  those  alien  sins  which  they  shelter  in  their 
hearts.  "  Do  take,  if  you  please,"  they  would  say  to  me, 
"three  hundred  roubles,  or  five  hundred  roubles,  but  I 
myself  cannot  go  to  those  purlieus."  There  is  no  want 
of  money.  Think  of  Zacchaeus,  the  chief  of  the  publicans, 
of  whom  the  Gospel  speaks.  Eemember  how  he,  being 
small,  climbed  a  tree  in  order  to  see  Christ,  and  how  he, 
when  Christ  announced  that  he  was  going  to  his  house, 
understood  only  this,  that  the  master  did  not  extol 
wealth,  and  tumbled  down  from  the  tree  and  started 
home  on  a  run,  in  order  to  prepare  a  reception  for  Christ. 
And,  when  Christ  entered,  the  first  thing  Zacchaeus  an- 
nounced was  that  he  had  given  half  his  fortune  to  the 
poor,  and  that  to  those  whom  he  had  offended  he  would 
give  fourfold.  And  remember  how  we,  reading  the 
Gospel,  hold  this  Zacchaeus  in  little  esteem,  and  with 
involuntary  contempt  look  at  this  half  of  his  fortune  and 
fourfold  remuneration.  And  our  feeling  is  right.  Upon 
reflection,  Zacchseus,  it  seems,  did  a  great  thing ;  but  our 


350  ON   THE   MOSCOW   CENSUS 

feeling  is  correct.  He  had  not  yet  begun  to  do  good :  he 
only  began  to  cleanse  himself  a  little  from  evil.  Christ 
told  him  so.  All  he  told  him  was,  This  day  is  salvation 
come  to  this  house. 

Suppose  the  Moscow  Zacchseuses  should  do  the  same. 
There  would  be  more  than  a  billion  gathered  together. 
Well,  what  would  become  of  it  ?  Nothing.  There  would 
be  even  more  sin,  if  they  proposed  to  distribute  it  among 
the  poor.  It  is  not  money  that  is  needed.  What  is 
needed  is  an  activity  of  self-renunciation  and  men  who 
would  be  willing  to  do  good,  not  by  giving  other  people's 
sins,  money,  but  their  own  labour,  themselves,  their  life. 
Where  are  these  people  ?  Here  they  are,  they  are  walk- 
ing about  Moscow.  They  are  those  student  census-takers. 
I  have  seen  them  write  their  cards.  They  write  in  a  doss- 
house,  on  a  sick  man's  bunk.  "  What  is  your  disease  ? " 
"  Smallpox."  And  such  a  student  does  not  even  frown, 
but  continues  writing.  And  this  he  does  for  the  sake  of 
some  doubtful  science.  What  would  he  do,  if  he  did  this 
for  his  undoubted  personal  good  and  for  the  good  of  all 
people  ? 

Just  as  children  in  a  happy  mood  want  to  laugh  and, 
unable  to  discover  a  cause  for  laughter,  laugh  without 
any  cause,  simply  because  they  feel  happy,  so  these  dear 
youths  sacrifice  themselves.  They  have  not  yet  had  time 
to  find  a  pretext  for  sacrificing  themselves,  and  yet  sacri- 
fice their  attention,  labour,  and  life,  in  order  to  write  the 
cards,  which  may  lead  to  something,  or  not.  What 
would  happen,  if  there  were  something  worth  while? 
This  something  exists  and  has  existed,  and  it  is  a 
business  for  which  it  is  worth  while  to  lay  down  the 
whole  life  which  there  is  in  man.  This  business  is 
the  brotherly  communion  of  people  with  people,  and  the 
breaking  down  of  those  obstacles  which  people  have 
raised  between  themselves,  in  order  that  the  merriment 
of  the   rich   man   may  not  be  impaired   by  the  wild 


ON   THE   MOSCOW   CENSUS  351 

lamentations  of  bestialized  men  and  by  the  groans  of 
helpless  hunger,  cold,  and  diseases. 

The  census  brings  out  before  the  eyes  of  us,  the  well- 
to-do  and  so-called  cultured  men,  all  that  misery  and 
oppression  which  nestles  in  all  the  nooks  of  Moscow. 
Two  thousand  people  of  our  class,  who  stand  on  the 
highest  round  of  the  ladder,  will  face  thousands  of 
people  who  stand  on  the  lowest  round  of  society.  Let 
us  not  miss  the  opportunity  for  this  communion.  Let  us 
preserve  this  communion  through  these  two  thousand 
people,  and  let  us  use  it  for  the  purpose  of  saving  our- 
selves from  the  aimlessness  and  monstrosity  of  our  life, 
and  of  freeing  the  wronged  from  those  calamities  and  mis- 
fortunes which  do  not  permit  us  sensitive  people  calmly 
to  enjoy  our  joys. 

This  is  what  I  propose:  (1)  all  of  us,  managers  and 
takers  of  the  census,  shall  to  the  business  of  the  census 
add  the  business  of  assistance,  —  of  work  for  the  good  of 
such  men  as  we  meet,  who,  in  our  opinion,  demand  aid ; 
(2)  all  of  us,  managers  and  takers  of  the  census,  shall, 
not  by  the  appointment  from  the  City  Council's  com- 
mittee, but  by  the  prompting  of  our  hearts,  remain  in  our 
places,  that  is,  in  relations  with  the  inhabitants  who 
demand  aid,  and  shall,  after  the  conclusion  of  the  work 
of  the  census,  continue  our  work  of  assistance.  If  I 
have  been  able  to  express  but  a  small  part  of  what  I  feel, 
I  am  sure  that  only  impossibility  will  compel  the  man- 
agers and  the  takers  of  the  census  to  abandon  this  work, 
and  that  others  will  appear  in  place  of  those  who  give 
up  the  work;  (3)  all  those  inhabitants  of  Moscow  who 
feel  themselves  able  to  work  for  the  needy  shall  join  the 
various  wards  and,  by  the  indications  of  the  census- 
takers  and  managers,  begin  their  activity  at  once  and 
continue  it  in  the  future ;  (4)  all  those  who,  on  account 
of  old  age,  feebleness,  or  other  causes,  cannot  work  them- 
selves amidst  the  needy,  shall  entrust  their  work  to  their 


352  ON   THE   MOSCOW   CENSUS 

young,  strong,  willing  neighbours.  (The  good  is  not  the 
giving  of  money,  —  it  is  a  brotherly  relation  of  men.  It 
alone  is  needed.) 

No  matter  what  may  come  of  it,  it  is  better  than  what 
is  going  on  at  present. 

Let  the  least  work  be  this,  that  we,  the  takers  and  the 
managers  of  the  census,  shall  distribute  a  hundred  twenty- 
kopek  pieces  among  those  who  have  had  nothing  to  eat ; 
that  will  not  be  a  trifle,  not  so  much  because  the  starving 
will  have  something  to  eat,  as  because  the  takers  and  the 
managers  of  the  census  will  be  in  a  humane  relation  to  a 
hundred  poor  people.  How  are  we  to  figure  out  what 
consequences  will  be  produced  in  the  general  moral  bal- 
ance by  the  fact  that,  instead  of  the  feeling  of  annoyance, 
malice,  envy,  which  we  shall  provoke,  as  we  count  up  the 
hungry,  we  shall  a  hundred  times  evoke  a  good  sentiment, 
which  will  be  reflected  on  a  second,  a  third  man,  and  will 
in  an  endless  wave  pour  forth  among  the  people  ?  That  is 
a  great  deal. 

Let  there  be  only  this  much,  that  those  of  the  two 
thousand  census-takers  who  did  not  understand  this  be- 
fore will  come  to  understand  that  amidst  misery  it  is  not 
right  to  say,  "  This  is  very  interesting,"  that  a  man's  mis- 
fortune must  not  merely  represent  some  interest  to  a  man. 
Even  that  will  be  good.  Let  there  be  only  this  much, 
that  aid  will  be  furnished  to  all  those  unfortunates,  of 
whom  there  are  not  so  many  in  Moscow  as  I  used  to 
think,  who  can  easily  be  aided  with  money  alone.  Let 
there  be  this,  that  those  labourers  who  have  strayed  into 
Moscow  and  have  sold  their  clothes  to  buy  food,  and  who 
are  unable  to  return  to  the  country,  will  be  sent  home ; 
that  neglected  orphans  will  be  looked  after;  that  en- 
feebled old  paupers,  who  are  living  on  the  charity  of 
fellow  paupers,  will  be  spared  a  death  from  semi-starva- 
tion. (That  is  very  possible.  There  are  not  very  many 
of  them.)     Even  that  will  be  very,  very  much. 


ON  THE  MOSCOW  CENSUS        353 

But  why  shall  we  not  think  and  hope  that  more,  much 
more  will  be  done?  Why  shall  we  not  hope  that  we 
shall  partially  do  or  begin  that  real  work,  which  is  no 
longer  done  with  money,  but  with  labour,  —  that  we 
shall  save  enfeebled  drunkards,  uncaught  thieves,  and 
prostitutes  for  whom  salvation  is  possible  ?  Even  if  not 
all  evil  shall  be  remedied,  there  will  be  its  recognition, 
and  we  shall  struggle  against  it  not  with  police  measures, 
but  with  inner  measures,  —  with  the  brotherly  communion 
of  men  who  see  the  evil  against  men  who  do  not  see 
it,  because  they  are  in  it. 

No  matter  what  may  be  done,  it  will  be  much.  But 
why  shall  we  not  hope  that  everything  will  be  done? 
Why  can  we  not  hope  that  we  shall  succeed  in  accom- 
plishing this,  that  in  Moscow  there  will  not  be  a  single 
man  without  clothes,  nor  one  who  is  hungry,  nor  one 
unfortunate  man  who  is  crushed  by  fate,  without  know- 
ing that  he  may  have  brotherly  assistance?  What  is 
remarkable  is  not  that  this  should  be,  but  that  it  exists 
side  by  side  with  our  excess  of  leisure  and  wealth,  and 
that  we  can  live  calmly,  knowing  that  it  exists.  Let  us 
forget  that  in  large  cities  and  in  London  there  is  a  prole- 
tariat, and  let  us  not  say  that  it  must  be  so.  It  must  not 
be,  because  it  is  contrary  to  our  reason  and  to  our  heart, 
and  it  is  impossible,  if  we  are  living  men. 

Why  can  we  not  hope  that  we  shall  understand  that 
we  have  not  a  single  obligation,  to  say  nothing  of  a  per- 
sonal obligation,  for  our  own  sake,  not  any  domestic,  nor 
public,  nor  political,  nor  scientific  obligation,  which  is 
more  important  than  this  ?  Why  can  we  not  hope  that 
we  shall  finally  comprehend  it  ?  Is  it  because  this  would 
be  too  great  a  happiness  ?  Why  can  we  not  think  that 
some  day  men  will  wake  up  and  comprehend  that  every- 
thing else  is  offensive,  and  this  alone  is  the  business  of 
life  ?  And  why  can  this  "  some  day "  not  be  now,  in 
Moscow  ?     Why  can  we  not  hope  that  the   same  will 


354         ON  THE  MOSCOW  CENSUS 

happen  with  society,  with  humanity,  that  happens  with 
the  ailing  organism,  when  suddenly  there  arrives  a  mo- 
ment of  convalescence  ?  The  organism  is  diseased ;  this 
means  that  the  cells  stop  doing  their  mysterious  work  : 
some  die,  others  are  born,  others  again  remain  indifferent, 
working  for  themselves.  Suddenly  there  arrives  a  mo- 
ment when  every  living  cell  begins  its  independent  vital 
work :  it  pushes  out  the  dead  cells,  with  a  living  barrier 
excludes  those  that  are  infected,  communicates  life  to 
those  that  live,  and  the  body  rises  from  the  dead  and 
lives  a  full  life. 

Why  can  we  not  think  and  hope  that  the  cells  of  our 
society  will  revive,  and  will  bring  the  organism  to  life  ? 
We  do  not  know  in  whose  power  the  cells  are,  but  we 
know  that  life  is  in  our  power.  We  can  manifest  the 
light  which  is  in  us,  or  we  may  put  it  out. 

Let  a  man  come  at  the  end  of  the  day  to  the  Lyapinski 
night  lodging-house,  when  one  thousand  insufficiently  clad 
and  hungry  people  are  waiting  in  the  cold  to  be  let  into 
the  house,  and  let  this  one  man  try  to  help  them,  —  his 
heart  will  bleed,  and  he  will  with  despair  and  resentment 
at  men  run  away  from  there ;  but  let  one  thousand  people 
come  to  those  one  thousand  people  with  the  desire  to  help 
them,  and  the  work  will  appear  easy  and  pleasant.  Let 
the  mechanics  invent  a  machine  with  which  to  lift  the 
burden  which  is  choking  us,  —  that  is  good ;  but  while 
they  have  not  yet  invented  it,  let  us  in  foolish,  peasant, 
Christian  fashion  heave  in  a  mass,  —  maybe  we  can  lift  it. 
Heave,  friends,  all  together ! 


INTRODUCTION    TO    THE 
COLLECTED   ARTICLES 

"WHAT  IS  THE  TRUTH  IN  ART?" 

1887 


INTRODUCTION    TO    THE 
COLLECTED    ARTICLES 

"WHAT  IS  THE  TRUTH  IN  ART?" 


O  generation  of  vipers,  how  can  ye,  being  evil,  speak  good 
things  ?  for  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth 
speaketh.  A  good  man  out  of  the  good  treasure  of  the  heart 
bringeth  forth  good  things  :  and  an  evil  man  out  of  the  evil 
treasure  bringeth  forth  evil  things.  But  I  say  unto  you, 
That  every  idle  word  that  men  shall  speak,  they  shall  give 
account  thereof  in  the  day  of  judgment.  For  by  thy  words 
thou  shalt  be  justified,  and  by  thy  words  thou  shalt  be 
condemned.     (Matt.  xii.  34-37.) 

In  this  volume  there  are  collected,  in  addition  to  stories 
which  describe  real  occurrences,  stories,  traditions,  saws, 
legends,  fables,  fairy-tales,  such  as  have  been  composed 
and  written  for  the  good  of  children. 

We  have  chosen  such  as  we  regard  as  conforming  with 
Christ's  teaching,  and  so  regard  as  good  and  true. 

Many  people,  and  especially  children,  reading  a  history, 
fairy-tale,  legend,  fable,  ask  first  of  all :  "  Is  what  they 
say  true  ? "  And  frequently,  when  they  see  that  what  is 
described  could  not  have  happened,  they  say,  "  This  is  an 
idle  invention  and  untrue." 

People  who  judge  thus  judge  incorrectly. 

The  truth  is  learned  not  by  him  who  learns  only  what 
has  been  and  what  happens,  but  by  him  who  learns  what 
ought  to  be  by  God's  will. 

367 


358  WHAT   IS   THE   TRUTH   IN   ART? 

The  truth  will  be  written  not  by  him  who  describes 
only  what  has  happened  and  what  this  man  and  that  man 
did,  but  by  him  who  will  show  what  people  do  well,  that 
is,  in  accordance  with  God's  will,  and  what  badly,  that  is, 
contrary  to  God's  wilL 

The  truth  is  a  path.  Christ  has  said,  I  am  the  way  and 
the  truth  and  the  life. 

And  so  the  truth  is  not  known  by  him  who  looks  at 
his  feet,  but  by  him  who  knows  by  the  sun  whither  to  go. 

All  hterary  productions  are  good  and  necessary,  not 
when  they  describe  what  has  been,  but  when  they  show 
what  ought  to  be ;  not  when  they  tell  what  men  did, 
but  when  they  estimate  what  is  good  and  what  bad, — 
when  they  show  to  men  the  narrow  path  of  God's  will, 
which  leads  to  life. 

In  order  to  show  this  path,  it  is  impossible  to  describe 
only  what  happens  in  the  world.  The  world  abides  in 
evil  and  in  offences.  If  you  are  going  to  describe  the 
world  as  it  is,  you  will  describe  many  lies,  and  in  your 
words  there  will  be  no  truth.  In  order  that  there  may  be 
any  truth  in  what  you  describe,  you  must  not  write  what 
is,  but  what  ought  to  be,  —  to  describe  the  truth,  not  of 
what  exists,  but  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  is  coming 
nearer  to  us,  but  is  not  yet.  For  this  reason  there  are 
mountains  of  books,  in  which  we  are  told  of  just  what 
has  happened,  or  what  might  have  happened,  but  these 
books  are  all  lies,  if  those  who  write  them  do  not  them- 
selves know  what  is  good  and  what  bad,  and  do  not  know 
and  do  not  point  out  the  one  path  which  leads  men  to  the 
kingdom  of  God.  And  there  are  fairy-tales,  parables, 
fables,  legends,  in  which  something  miraculous  is  de- 
scribed, something  which  has  never  happened  and  never 
could  have  happened,  and  these  legends,  fairy-tales,  fables, 
are  true,  because  they  show  wherein  the  will  of  God  has 
always  been,  wherein  is  the  righteousness  of  the  kingdom 
of  God. 


WHAT  IS  THE  TRUTH  IN  ART?      359 

There  may  be  a  book,  —  and  there  are  many,  many 
such  novels  and  stories  in  which  is  described  how  a  man 
lives  for  his  passions,  suffers,  torments  others,  undergoes 
dangers  and  want,  and  shows  cunning ;  struggles  with 
others,  escapes  poverty,  and  finally  unites  with  the  object 
of  his  love,  and  becomes  famous,  rich,  and  happy.  Such 
a  book,  even  though  everything  described  in  it  is  as  it  has 
happened,  and  though  there  may  be  nothing  improbable  in 
it,  will  none  the  less  be  a  lie  and  untruth,  because  a  man 
who  lives  for  himself  and  his  passions,  no  matter  what 
beautiful  wife  he  may  have,  and  how  famous  and  rich  he 
may  be,  cannot  be  happy. 

And  there  may  be  a  legend  about  how  Christ  and  His 
apostles  walked  over  the  earth  and  went  to  see  a  rich  man, 
and  the  rich  man  did  not  let  Him  in,  and  how  He  went  to 
a  poor  widow,  and  she  let  Him  in.  And  then  He  ordered 
a  barrel  full  of  gold  to  be  rolled  up  to  the  rich  man,  and 
sent  a  wolf  to  the  poor  widow  to  eat  up  her  last  calf, 
and  the  widow  was  well  off,  and  the  rich  man  fared 
badly. 

Such  a  story  is  all  improbable,  because  nothing  of  what 
is  described  has  happened,  or  could  have  happened ;  but 
it  is  all  true,  because  it  shows  what  always  must  be,  in 
what  the  good  is,  and  in  what  the  bad,  and  what  a  man 
must  strive  after  in  order  to  do  the  will  of  God. 

No  matter  what  miracles  may  be  described,  or  what 
animals  may  speak  in  human  fashion,  or  how  self-flying 
carpets  may  carry  people  from  place  to  place,  —  the  leg- 
ends, and  parables,  and  fables  will  be  true,  if  in  them 
there  be  the  righteousness  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  And 
if  there  be  not  that  truth,  let  everything  described  be 
attested  by  whomsoever  you  please,  —  it  will  all  be  a  lie, 
because  it  has  not  the  righteousness  of  the  kingdom  of 
God.  Christ  Himself  spoke  in  parables,  and  His  parables 
have  remained  eternal  truths.  He  only  added.  Observe 
as  you  hear. 


TO    THE    DEAR    YOUTH 

1887 


TO   THE   DEAR  YOUTH 


Your  letter  is,  not  in  spite,  but  in  consequence,  of 
your  youth  so  heartfelt  and  so  serious  that,  no  matter 
how  difficult  and  how  inconvenient  it  is  for  me  to  answer 
it  in  a  short  letter,  I  shall  none  the  less  try  to  do  so. 

You  write  that  you  do  not  need  any  defence  of  the 
necessity  of  faith,  that  you  recognize  this  necessity.  That 
is  nice !  Thank  God  for  this.  You  have  that  which  no 
one  can  give.  As  Christ  has  said :  "  No  man  can  come 
to  me  except  the  Father  draws  him." 

But  you  say :  "  What  shall  I  believe  in  ? "  You  say : 
"  Christianity,  but  which  ? " 

There  may  be  two  conceptions :  Christ  God,  the  son  of 
God,  who  came  down  from  heaven,  in  order  to  save  and 
enlighten  men,  and  Christ  the  man,  one  of  those  in  whom 
there  is  the  highest  divine  wisdom,  who  lived  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago,  and  who  founded  a  teaching  which 
has  taken  possession  of  humanity,  and  has  transformed  it. 

Let  us  at  first  admit  the  second  supposition,  which  I 
have  never  fully  admitted,  and  which,  I  assume,  is  also 
unpleasant  for  you  to  admit.  Let  us  admit  it.  Christ 
is  a  great  sage  and  teacher,  not  only  in  words,  but  also  in 
his  life  and  death.  Is  there  any  possibility  of  perverting 
the  teaching  of  such  a  man  ?  How,  for  example,  can  we 
pervert  Socrates'  teaching  ?     Let  them  pervert  and  distort 

363 


364  TO  THE   DEAR  YOUTH 

him  as  much  as  they  please.  He  who  understands  the 
spirit  of  Socrates*  teaching  will  without  any  effort  and 
without  any  labour  reject  the  perversions,  and  leave 
what  forms  the  essence  of  the  teaching. 

A  great  teacher  is  great  for  this  very  reason,  that  he  is 
clear,  unambiguous,  and  unsubjected  to  perversions,  just 
as  a  diamond  cannot  be  ground  by  anything  weaker  than 
it  itself  is. 

For  the  same  reason  there  can  be  no  different  interpre- 
tations of  the  great  teacher.  He  is  great  for  the  very 
reason  that  he  has  unified  everything  which  was  scattered 
and  dispersed.  How  can  his  teaching  break  up  into  dif- 
ferent sects  ?  If  the  great  teaching  breaks  up  into  differ- 
ent sects,  this  means  that  something  false  is  falling  to 
pieces,  something  which  is  called  by  the  name  of  a  great 
teaching,  but  not  the  teaching  itself. 

If  the  great  teaching  (the  one  which  I  recognize  as 
great)  should  present  itself  to  me  as  corrupted  or  break- 
ing up  into  a  multitude  of  sects,  what  else  could  I  do  but 
take  the  teaching  itself,  the  one  which  is  nearest  to  the 
teacher,  in  which  there  are  most  of  his  utterances, 
and  begin  to  read  it,  trying  to  penetrate  its  meaning.  If 
the  teaching  is  distorted  and  has  broken  up  into  a  multi- 
tude of  sects,  one  of  two  things  is  true :  either  the  teach- 
ing itself  is  insignificant,  or  I  do  not*  know  the  great 
teaching. 

And  so,  in  the  case  of  the  second  assumption,  that 
Christ  is  a  wise  man,  it  is  necessary  quite  freely  to  read 
the  gospels  of  the  four  evangelists,  and  without  self-satis- 
faction and  without  false  joy  to  read  this  book,  as  we  read 
the  books  of  the  sages.  Then  there  will  at  once  appear 
the  greatness  of  the  teaching,  the  distortions  wiU  fall  off 
at  once,  and  it  will  become  clear  that  the  breaking  up 
into  sects  does  not  take  place  in  the  teaching  itself,  but 
in  the  artificial  sphere  which  is  outside  of  it. 

The  necessity  of  simply  and  naively  reading  the  four 


TO   THE   DEAR   YOUTH  365 

evangelists,  excerpting  from  them  the  utterances  of  Christ 
Himself,  becomes  even  more  obvious  in  the  case  of  the 
first  assumption.  Christ  God  once  during  the  whole  ex- 
istence of  the  world  descended  upon  earth  in  order  to 
reveal  to  men  their  salvation.  He  came  down  out  of  love 
for  men.  He  lived,  and  taught,  and  died,  loving  men. 
You  and  I  are  men.  We  suffer  and  are  agonized  in  our 
search  for  salvation,  and  we  do  not  find  it.  Why,  then, 
did  Christ  come  down  into  the  world  ?  There  is  some- 
thing wrong  here. 

Could  God,  upon  coming  down  to  the  world,  have  for- 
gotten you  and  me  ?  Or  ^vas  He  unable  to  speak  in  such 
a  way  that  we  might  understand  ?  But  He  did  speak, 
and  we  have  His  words  before  us.  They  are  before  us  in 
precisely  the  same  form  in  which  they  were  before  those 
who  heard  His  sermon  on  the  mount.  Why  did  all 
those  understand  ?  Why  did  they  not  say  that  it  was 
obscure,  and  why  did  they  not  ask  Him  for  explanations  ? 
No,  they  understood  Him,  and  said  that  they  had  never 
heard  anything  like  it,  that  He  was  teaching  them  as 
i^ovaiav  €%ft)i/,  as  one  having  power.  Why  is  it  incom- 
prehensible to  us,  and  why  are  we  afraid  that  we  shall 
break  up  into  sects  ?  Evidently  because  we  do  not  hear 
Him,  but  those  who  stood  in  His  place. 

Thus,  as  in  the  first  assumption,  there  is  one  thing  left 
to  do,  and  that  is,  to  listen  to  His  words  with  childish 
simplicity,  as  a  child  listens  to  his  mother,  with  the  full 
assurance  that  his  mother,  loving  him,  will  be  able  to 
tell  him  everything  clearly  and  simply,  and  that  only  his 
mother  will  tell  him  the  real  truth  and  everything  neces- 
sary for  his  good.  We  need  only  read  in  this  manner,  re- 
jecting, at  least  for  a  time,  all  considerations  about  what 
by  others  is  considered  divine,  just,  lawful,  in  order  that  it 
may  become  absolutely  clear  that  God  has  not  deceived 
us,  that  He  has,  indeed,  given  us  salvation,  and  has 
revealed  to  us  the  truth,  as  indubitably  and  as  compre- 


366  TO   THE   DEAR   YOUTH 

hensibly  as  the  mathematical  truths  are  revealed  to  us, 
when  we  learn  them. 

With  such  a  reading  the  spirit  of  Christ's  teaching  is 
revealed  to  us,  that  is,  that  universal  principle  which 
permeates  everything,  and  which  will  guide  us  in  the 
comprehension  or  non-comprehension  of  obscure  passages. 
I  say  "  non-comprehension,"  because  the  non-comprehen- 
sion of  obscure  passages  for  a  man  who  is  permeated  with 
the  spirit  of  the  teaching  does  not  interfere  with  the 
clear,  full  comprehension  of  clear  passages.  To  a  man 
who  is  permeated  with  the  spirit  of  the  teaching  an 
obscure  passage  means  only  this,  that  the  writing  on  paper 
is  the  work  of  human  hands  and  is  subject  to  errors,  but 
in  no  way  can  lead  him  into  error  as  to  the  meaning  of 
the  clear  passages. 

Only  he  who  seeks  the  letter,  and  not  the  spirit,  can 
ascribe  an  arbitrary  meaning,  which  is  frequently  contrary 
to  the  spirit  of  the  teaching,  to  the  obscure  passages.  The 
obscure  passages  cannot  interfere  with  the  understanding 
of  the  teaching.  There  are  too  many  passages  which  are 
clear,  divine,  subject  to  no  varying  interpretations,  all 
of  them  united  among  themselves  by  one  principle  and  by 
the  immediate  and  ecstatic  consciousness  of  the  truth, 
passages  which  echo  in  the  hearts  of  aU  men,  in  order 
that  the  obscure  passages  should  interfere  with  the  com- 
prehension. What  interferes  with  the  comprehension  is 
something  else,  that  of  which  the  gospel  says :  "  They 
did  not  walk  toward  the  light,  for  their  works  were  evil." 

What  interferes  with  the  comprehension  of  Christ's 
teaching  is  this,  that  the  works  of  the  world  amidst 
which  we  have  grown  up  and  Hve,  of  the  world  which 
has  the  impudence  to  call  itself  Christian,  are  evil,  and 
we  do  not  want  to  see  what  arraigns  us,  that  what  is  de- 
manded of  us  is  a  renunciation  of  what  we  have  become 
fond  of,  and  the  cross,  which  Christ  recognizes  as  a  neces- 
sary condition  of  the  life  of  His  disciple. 


TO   THE   DEAR   YOUTH  367 

Christ's  teaching  is  as  simple,  clear,  and  indubitable  as 
the  fact  that  all  right  angles  are  equal,  but  I  have  seen  a 
man  build  a  crooked  house,  and  so  deny  this  truth.  In 
order  that  I  may  understand  Christ's  teaching,  I  must 
first  of  all  say  to  myself  that  what  I  am  studying  is  the 
highest  law,  the  law  of  God,  and  that,  therefore,  I  with 
this  law  measure  all  the  other  laws  which  I  know,  and 
not  vice  versa,  look  in  God's  law  for  what  confirms  the 
human  laws,  but  in  advance  recognize  it  as  holy.  Only 
he  will  understand  Christ's  teaching  who,  before  studying 
it,  will  clearly  establish  in  his  soul  the  meaning  of  what 
he  is  seeking,  —  he  who  recognizes  as  holy  nothing  but 
his  soul,  as  a  human  soul,  and  its  relation  to  God. 

We  have  been  taught  that  we  can  be  Christians,  without 
effort,  ever  since  our  baptism,  that  is,  almost  since  our 
birth,  without  any  labour,  without  any  self-renunciation. 

Christ  has  said  (Luke  xiv.  33) :  "  Who  forsaketh  not 
all  that  he  hath  cannot  be  my  disciple."  But  there  have 
been  no  such  Christians,  and  there  can  be  none.  The 
kingdom  of  God  is  always  taken  by  force,  and  it  cannot 
be  otherwise.  It  is  impossible  to  serve  God  and  mam- 
mon, —  it  is  impossible  to  be  a  little  bit  a  Christian, 
to  hold  on  to  Christianity  for  the  sake  of  pleasure,  of 
decency,  of  consolation  in  the  heavy  moments  of  life. 
Christianity  is  the  teaching  of  the  true  life. 

Christ  says :  "  He  that  belie veth  on  me  hath  life,  and 
he  that  believeth  not  hath  not  life."  And  so  the  faith 
in  Christ  changes  a  man's  whole  hfe  and  imposes  on  him 
what  he  calls  the  cross. 

I  do  not  know  whether  I  have  said  anything  of  im- 
portance to  you.  I  am  afraid  not,  though  I  should  like 
to  very  much,  for  I  have  come  to  love  you  from  your 
letter.  I  think  that  you  will  get  some  of  my  writings  on 
religious  questions,  and  then  you  will  probably  see  clearly 
what  now  is  not  comprehensible  to  you.  Seek  and  you 
will  find.     That  is  so  simple.     All  the  needs  which  are 


368  TO   THE   DEAR  YOUTH 

stored  in  man  receive  their  satisfaction ;  how,  then,  is  it 
possible  that  the  highest  need  of  faith  should  not  have 
it  ?     All  that  is  necessary  is  to  reject  the  false  concep- 
tions. 
1886, 


WHAT     A     CHRISTIAN     MAY 
DO,  AND  WHAT   NOT 

1887 


WHAT     A     CHRISTIAN     MAY 
DO,    AND    WHAT    NOT 


One  thousand .  eight  hundred  and  eighty  years  ago  a 
new  law  was  revealed  to  men  by  Jesus  Christ.  By  His 
life  and  His  death  Christ  showed  to  men  what  he  who 
wants  to  be  His  disciple,  a  Christian,  may  do,  and  what 
not. 

According  to  Christ's  teaching,  the  sons  of  the  Father 
are  free  (Matt.  xvii.  26),  for  they  know  the  truth,  and  the 
truth  shall  make  them  free  (John  viii.  32).  Christ's  teach- 
ing was  then,  even  as  it  is  now,  contrary  to  the  teaching 
of  the  world.  According  to  the  teaching  of  the  world, 
the  powers  govern  the  nations,  and,  to  govern  them,  com- 
pel some  people  to  kill,  execute,  punish  others,  and  to 
swear  that  they  will  in  everything  do  the  will  of  the 
rulers.  According  to  Christ's  teaching,  a  man  not  only 
cannot  kill  another,  but  even  cannot  do  violence  to  him, 
or  resist  him  with  force :  he  can  not  do  evil  to  his  neigh- 
bour, nor  even  to  his  enemy. 

The  teaching  of  the  world  and  of  Christ  have  always 
been  and  always  will  be  opposed  to  each  other.  Christ 
knew  this,  and  said  this  to  His  disciples,  and  predicted  to 
them  that  He  Himself  would  suffer  and  that  they,  too, 
would  be  delivered  to  be  afflicted  and  killed  (Matt  xxiv. 
9),  and  that  the  world  would  hate  them,  because  they 

371 


372  WHAT   A    CHRISTIAN   MAY    DO 

would  not  be  the  servants  of  the  world,  but  of  the  Father 
(John  XV.  19,  20). 

And  everything  came  to  pass  as  Jesus  had  predicted. 
The  world  hated  Him  and  tried  to  ruin  Him.  All,  the 
Pharisees,  and  the  Sadducees,  and  the  scribes,  and  the 
Herodians,  rebuked  Him  for  being  an  enemy  to  Caesar,  for 
prohibiting  men  from  paying  tribute  to  him,  for  disturb- 
ing and  corrupting  the  world.  They  said  that  He  was 
an  evildoer,  that  He  made  Himself  a  king,  and  so  was  an 
enemy  of  Caesar  (John  xix.  12). 

Even  before  He  was  delivered  up  to  be  put  to  death, 
they,  watching  Him,  sent  cunning  men  up  to  Him,  to 
catch  Him  in  some  utterance,  so  as  to  dehver  Him  up 
to  the  authorities  and  the  power  of  the  ruler.  And  they 
asked  Him: 

Master,  we  know  that  Thou  art  true,  and  teachest  the 
way  of  God  in  truth,  neither  carest  Thou  for  any  man : 
for  Thou  regardest  not  the  person  of  men.  Tell  us  there- 
fore. What  thinkest  Thou  ?  Is  it  lawful  to  give  tribute 
unto  Caesar,  or  not  ?  But  Jesus  perceived  their  wicked- 
ness, and  said,  Why  tempt  ye  me,  ye  hypocrites  ?  Shew 
me  the  tribute  money.  And  they  brought  unto  Him  a 
penny.  And  He  saith  unto  them.  Whose  is  this  image 
and  superscription  ?  They  say  unto  Him,  Caesar's.  Then 
saith  He  unto  them,  Eender  therefore  unto  Caesar  the 
things  which  are  Caesar's ;  and  unto  God  the  things  that 
are  God's.  When  they  had  heard  these  words,  they  mar- 
velled at  His  answer,  and  grew  silent. 

They  had  expected  Him  to  say,  either  that  it  is  lawful 
and  necessary  to  pay  tribute  to  Caesar,  and  that  thus  He 
would  destroy  His  whole  teaching  about  the  sons  being 
free,  about  a  man  being  obliged  to  Hve  hke  the  birds  of 
the  air,  not  caring  for  the  morrow,  and  many  similar 
things ;  or  that  He  would  say  that  it  is  not  lawful  to  pay 
tribute  to  Csesar,  and  that  thus  He  would  show  Himself  to 
be  an  enemy  to  Caesar.     But  Christ  said,  Unto  Caesar  the 


WHAT   A   CHKISTIAN   MAY   DO  373 

things  which  are  Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  which 
are  God's.  He  said  more  than  they  had  expected  of  Him. 
He  defined  everything,  dividing  everything  a  man  has 
into  two  parts,  —  into  the  human  and  the  divine,  and 
said  that  what  is  man's  may  be  given  to  man,  and  what 
is  God's  cannot  be  given  to  man,  but  only  to  God ;  and 
what  both  God  and  Caesar  claim  ought  to  be  given  to 
God. 

With  these  words  He  told  them  that  if  a  man  believes 
in  the  law  of  God,  he  can  fulfil  Caesar's  law  only  when 
it  is  not  contrary  to  God's.  For  the  Pharisees,  who  did 
not  know  the  truth,  there  still  existed  a  law  of  God 
which  they  would  not  have  transgressed,  even  if  Caesar's 
law  demanded  it  of  them.  They  would  not  have  de- 
parted from  circumcision,  from  the  observance  of  the 
Sabbath,  from  fasting  and  from  many  other  things.  If 
Caesar  had  demanded  of  them  work  on  a  Sabbath,  they 
would  have  said :  "  To  Caesar  belong  all  days,  but  not  the 
Sabbath."  The  same  is  true  of  circumcision  and  of  other 
things. 

Christ  showed  them  with  His  answer  that  God's  law 
stood  higher  than  Caesar's,  and  that  a  man  can  give  to 
Caesar  only  what  is  not  contrary  to  God's  law. 

Now,  what  is  for  Christ  and  for  His  disciples  Caesar's, 
and  what  God's  ? 

One  is  horrified  to  think  of  the  answer  to  this  question, 
which  one  may  hear  from  Christians  of  our  time !  God's, 
in  the  opinion  of  our  Christians,  never  interferes  with 
Caesar's,  and  Caesar's  is  always  in  agreement  with  God's. 
The  whole  life  is  given  up  to  the  service  of  Caesar,  and 
only  what  does  not  interfere  with  Caesar  is  turned  over  to 
God.     Not  so  did  Christ  understand  it. 

For  Christ  the  whole  life  is  God's  business,  and  what 
is  not  God's  may  be  given  to  Caesar. 

"  Unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's,  and  unto 
God  the  things  which  are  God's." 


374  WHAT  A   CHRISTIAN   MAT   DO 

What  is  Caesar's  ?  The  coin,  —  what  is  carnal,  —  not 
yours. 

Give,  then,  everything  carnal  to  him  who  will  take  it ; 
but  your  life,  which  you  have  received  from  God,  is  all 
God's.  This  cannot  be  given  to  any  one  but  God,  because 
man's  life,  according  to  Christ's  teachiag,  is  the  service  of 
God  (Matt.  iv.  10),  and  one  cannot  serve  two  masters 
(Matt.  vi.  24). 

Everything  carnal  a  man  must  give  to  somebody,  and 
so  may  give  also  to  Caesar ;  but  he  cannot  serve  anybody 
but  God. 

If  men  believed  in  Christ's  teaching,  in  the  teaching  of 
love,  they  could  not  lose  all  the  divine  laws  revealed  by 
Christ,  in  order  to  fulfil  the  laws  of  Caesar. 

1887. 


LETTER  TO  N.  N. 

(To  Engelhard) 
1887 


LETTER  TO  N.  N. 

(To  Engelhard) 


My  dear  N.  K.  :  —  I  write  to  you  "  dear/*  not  because 
people  usually  write  this  way,  but  because  since  the 
receipt  of  your  first,  but  especially  of  your  second,  letter, 
I  feel  that  you  are  very  near  to  me,  and  I  love  you  very 
much. 

In  the  sentiment  which  I  experience  there  is  much 
which  is  egoistical.  You  probably  do  not  think  so,  but 
you  cannot  imagine  to  what  extent  I  am  lonely,  to  what 
extent  that  which  is  my  real  ego  is  despised  by  aU  who 
surround  me. 

I  know  that  he  who  suffers  until  the  end  shall  be 
saved;  I  know  that  it  is  only  in  trifles  that  a  man  is 
given  the  right  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  labour,  or  at 
least  to  see  this  fruit,  but  that  in  matters  of  divine  truth, 
which  is  eternal,  it  cannot  be  given  to  man  to  see  the  fruit 
of  his  work,  especially  in  the  short  period  of  his  brief  life ; 
I  know  all  that,  and  yet  frequently  lose  courage,  and  so 
the  meeting  with  you  and  the  hope,  almost  the  assurance, 
of  finding  in  you  a  man  who  is  sincerely  walking  with 
me  on  the  road  and  tending  toward  the  same  goal  is  a 
great  joy  to  me. 

Well,  now  I  will  answer  everything  in  order. 

Your  letters  to  Aksakov  have  pleased  me,  especially 
the  last.     Your  proofs  are  incontestable,  but  they  do  not 

377 


378  LETTER  TO   N.  S. 

exist  for  him.  Everything  he  says  has  long  heen  known 
to  me.  It  is  all  repeated  in  life,  in  literature,  in  conver- 
sations :  it  is  all  one  and  the  same.  It  is  this :  "  I  see 
that  this  is  true,  and  this  false,  for  such  and  such  reasons ; 
that  this  is  good,  and  this  bad,  because  it  is  so  and  so." 

Aksakov  and  his  like  see  that  it  is  true ;  even  before 
you  have  told  it  to  them,  they  know  that  it  is  true.  But 
they  abide  in  the  lie,  and  in  order  that  a  man,  like  any 
other  with  a  heart  which  loves  the  good  and  despises  the 
evil,  and  with  a  reason  which  has  this  one  purpose  of  dis- 
tinguishing the  lie  from  the  truth,  may  be  able  to  live 
in  the  lie  and  the  evil,  and  serve  them,  he  had  to  close 
his  eyes  against  the  truth  even  before  this,  and  to  continue 
to  do  the  favourite  evil. 

They  have  all  the  same  shield :  the  historical  concep- 
tion, the  objective  view,  the  care  for  others,  and  the  re- 
moval of  the  question  as  to  their  relation  to  the  good  and 
to  truth. 

Aksdkov  does  this,  and  so  does  Solov^v,  and  so  have 
done  all  the  theologians,  and  all  the  statesmen,  the  politi- 
cal economists,  and  all  who  live  contrary  to  the  truth  and 
to  goodness,  and  who  have  to  justify  themselves  before 
themselves. 

This  cannot  be  said  any  more  clearly  than  it  has  been 
said  in  John  iii.  19-21. 

From  this  I  draw  the  conclusion  that  in  relation  to 
these  people  one  must  not  cast  the  pearls,  but  must  work 
out  a  certain  relation  to  them,  so  as  not  to  waste  strength. 
Disputing  with  them  is  not  only  an  idle  matter,  but  even 
harmful  for  our  purpose.  They  irritate  us  with  provoca- 
tions to  something  superfluous  and  inexact,  and,  forgetting 
all  the  chief  things  which  you  have  said,  will  harass  you 
only  about  that  one  thing. 

The  relation  which  I  am  trying  to  work  out  in  myself 
toward  them,  and  which  I  advise  others,  too,  to  work  out, 
is  like  my  relation  to  a  debauched,  drunken  bully  who  is 


LETTER  TO   N.   N.  379 

trying  to  draw  my  sixteen-year-old  son  into  debauch.  I 
am  sorry  for  this  debauchee,  but  I  will  not  try  to  mend 
him,  for  I  know  that  it  is  impossible  :  he  is  beyond  any 
hope,  and  will  only  ridicule  me  in  the  eyes  of  my  son. 
Nor  will  I  by  force  remove  my  son  from  him,  for  my 
son  will  inevitably  meet  him  or  his  like,  to-morrow,  if  not 
to-day ;  I  will  even  not  try  to  disclose  his  baseness  to  my 
son.  My  son  has  to  find  it  out  for  himself.  I  will  try  to 
fill  my  son's  soul  with  such  contents  that  the  temptations 
of  the  bully  will  not  corrupt  him,  or  else  I  shall  lose  all 
my  strength,  of  which  there  is  none  too  much,  in  casting 
the  pearls,  and  they  will,  if  not  trample  upon  you  and  me, 
and  crush  us,  put  out  the  little  flickering  light  amidst  the 
darkness. 

And  with  this  excursus  I  have  accidentally  approached 
directly  the  second  point  in  your  letter. 

"  How  are  men's  eyes  to  be  opened  ?  How  are  they  to 
be  saved  from  the  temptations  of  the  debauchees,  when 
violence  is  in  the  way  ? " 

"  How  is  the  evangelical  teaching  to  be  reaHzed  ? " 

"  Must  I  not  take  the  part  of  men  if  they  ask  my  aid 
even  though  I  should  have  to  free  them  by  force,  when 
before  my  eyes  others  kill  and  torture  them  ? " 

It  is  not  right  to  free  and  defend  men  by  force,  and  it 
is  not  right,  because  it  is  impossible  and  also  because  it  is 
foolish,  to  attempt  doing  good  by  means  of  violence. 

My  dearest,  please,  for  the  sake  of  the  God  of  truth, 
which  you  serve,  be  in  no  hurry,  do  not  get  excited,  do 
not  invent  proofs  of  the  justice  of  your  opinion  before  you 
have  thought  deeply,  not  of  what  I  am  writing  you,  but 
of  the  Gospel,  and  not  of  the  Gospel  as  the  word  of  Christ, 
or  God,  and  so  forth,  but  of  the  Gospel  as  the  clearest, 
simplest,  most  comprehensible,  and  practical  teaching  of 
how  each  of  us  and  all  men  are  to  live. 

If  a  mother  in  my  presence  thrashes  her  child,  what 
shall  I  do  ? 


380  LETTER   TO   N.   N. 

Consider  that  the  question  is  what  I  must  do,  that  is, 
what  is  good  and  rational,  and  not  what  my  first  impulse 
will  be.  The  first  impulse  in  the  case  of  a  personal  insult 
is  revenge;  but  the  question  is  whether  this  is  rational 

Precisely  such  is  the  question  as  to  whether  it  is 
rational  to  use  violence  against  the  mother  who  is  whip- 
ping her  child.  If  a  mother  is  whipping  her  child,  what 
is  it  that  pains  me,  and  that  I  consider  evil  ?  Is  it  that 
the  child  is  suffering  pain,  or  that  the  mother,  instead 
of  the  joy  of  love,  is  experiencing  the  agony  of  malice  ? 
I  think  that  in  either  there  is  evil. 

One  man  can  do  no  evil.  Evil  is  the  disunion  between 
men.  And  so,  if  I  want  to  act,  I  can  do  so  only  for 
the  purpose  of  destroying  the  disunion  and  estabhshing  the 
union  between  the  mother  and  the  child.  What,  then, 
shall  I  do  ?  Shall  I  use  violence  on  the  mother  ?  I  shall 
not  destroy  her  disunion  (sin)  with  the  child,  but  shall  only 
introduce  a  new  sin,  —  the  disunion  between  her  and  me. 
What,  then,  shall  I  do?  It  is  this:  take  the  child's 
place,  and  this  will  not  be  irrational. 

To  what  Dostoevski  writes, — which  has  always  dis- 
gusted me,  —  and  what  the  monks  and  the  metropolitans 
have  told  me,  —  that  it  is  lawful  to  wage  war,  for  it  is  a 
defence  ("  to  lay  down  one's  life  for  one's  brothers "),  I 
have  always  rephed :  "  To  defend  with  one's  breast,  to 
substitute  oneself,  yes,  —  but  to  shoot  people  with  guns, 
—  that  is  not  defending,  but  killing." 

Ponder  on  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel,  and  you  wiU  see 
that  the  very  short  fourth  commandment.  Resist  not  evil 
with  evil,  reply  not  to  evil,  is,  I  shall  not  say,  the  main, 
but  the  binding  link  of  the  whole  teaching,  the  one  which 
all  the  pseudo-Christian  teachings  have  most  carefully 
circumvented,  and  that  proposition  the  non-recognition  of 
which  has  served  as  the  foundation  of  everything  which 
you  so  justly  hate. 

To  say  nothing   of   the   Nicene    Council,  which   has 


LETTER   TO   N.   N.  381 

created  so  much  evil,  and  which  is  based  on  this  same 
lack  of  comprehension  of  Christ's  teaching,  that  is,  on 
violence  in  the  name  of  the  good  and  of  Christ,  this  vio- 
lence in  the  name  of  the  good  is  to  be  found  in  its  germ 
in  apostolic  times,  even  in  the  Acts  of  Paul,  and  vitiates 
the  meaning  of  the  teaching. 

How  often  I  have  felt  sad  in  my  conversations  with 
priests  and  revolutionists,  who  look  upon  the  evangehcal 
teaching  as  upon  a  weapon  for  obtaining  external  aims. 
The  men  of  either  extreme  poles  have  with  equal  virulence 
denied  this  fundamental  proposition  of  Christ's  teaching. 
The  first  must  not  persecute  and  crush  the  heterodox,  and 
bless  battles  and  executions;  the  second  must  not  by. 
force  destroy  the  existing  monstrous  disorder,  which  is 
called  order. 

Apparently  the  priests  and  the  authorities  cannot  even 
imagine  human  life  without  violence.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  revolutionists.  By  their  fruits  do  you  tell  the 
tree :  a  good  tree  cannot  bring  forth  fruits  of  violence. 
Christ's  teaching  can  neither  serve  for  killing,  nor  for 
temporizing ;  and  so  the  men  of  either  class,  by  pervert- 
ing the  teaching,  deprive  themselves  of  the  one  force 
which  is  given  by  the  faith  in  the  truth,  in  the  whole 
truth,  and  not  in  a  particle  of  it. 

"They  that  take  up  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the 
sword,"  is  not  a  prediction,  but  a  confirmation  of  a  fact 
well  known  to  all. 

« If  thy  light  is  darkness,"  if  that  which  thou  regard- 
est  as  good  is  not  good,  but  evil,  what  will  the  evil  of  thy 
life  and  of  thy  works  be  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  serve  God  a  little  and  the  devil  a 
little,  and  the  gospel  is  not  such  a  stupid  book  as  the 
priests  have  made  it  out  for  us.  Every  proposition  is  not 
given  there  to  the  winds,  but  is  organically  connected  with 
the  whole  teaching.  Even  so  the  commandment  about  the 
non-resistance  to  evil  by  means  of  violence  goes  through 


382  LETTER   TO   N.   N. 

the  whole  Gospel,  and  without  it  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel 
falls  to  pieces,  at  least  it  does  so  to  me.  Not  only  is  it 
many  times  expressed  clearly  and  directly,  so  that  it  can- 
not be  concealed;  not  only  is  all  the  description  of  life 
and  of  Christ's  works  an  application  of  this  command- 
ment; but  Evangelist  John  presents  Caiaphas  as  not 
understanding  this  truth,  and,  in  consequence  of  the  lack 
of  comprehension,  as  ruining  Christ's  Hfe  in  the  name  of 
the  people's  good ;  the  Gospel  shows  directly  that  resist- 
ance to  evil  by  means  of  violence  is  the  most  terrible  and 
dangerous  offence  into  which  Christ's  disciples  fall,  and  He 
Himself  comes  very  near  falling  into  it. 

More  than  this :  it  now  seems  to  me  that  if  Christ  and 
His  teaching  did  not  exist,  I  should  myself  have  discovered 
this  truth,  —  so  simple  and  clear  does  it  appear  to  me 
now,  and  I  am  convinced  it  will  appear  such  to  you  also. 

It  is  now  so  clear  to  me  that  if  I  were  to  admit  the 
slightest  violence  in  the  name  of  correcting  a  most  terrible 
evil,  another,  on  the  basis  of  this,  would  permit  himself 
a  small  act  of  violence,  and  a  third,  a  fourth,  and  millions 
of  small  acts  of  violence  will  combine  into  one  terrible 
evil,  which  exists  even  now  and  crushes  us. 

If  you  have  fulfilled  my  request  and  have  calmly  read 
to  the  end,  refraining  from  arguments  in  confirmation  of 
your  opinion,  and  have  followed  my  exposition,  then  I 
hope  that  you  will  agree  with  me  that  there  are  also 
strong  arguments  for  the  contrary  opinion,  and  I  hope 
that  you  will  still  more  agree  with  me  when  you  have 
read  the  exposition  which  I  am  sending  you. 

So  far  as  I  can  guess,  you  are  now  in  this  position : 
your  reason  tells  you  that  I  am  right,  but  your  heart 
revolts  against  such  a  proposition  concerning  the  non- 
resistance  to  evil. 

You  say  to  yourself :  "  Something  is  wrong  here ; 
there  is  here  some  error  of  judgment,  and  I  will  find  it 
and  wiU  prove  that  it  is  impossible  that  Christ's  teaching, 


LETTER   TO   N.   N  383 

the  teaching  of  love  for  my  brother,  should  lead  me  to  sit 
with  folded  arms  looking  at  the  evil  which  is  being  com- 
mitted in  the  world.  It  is  all  very  well,"  you  say,  «  for 
an  old  man  who  has  lived  his  day  to  talk  idly  and  assure 
all  men  that  we  must  not  resist  evil.  He  does  not  suffer : 
he  has  enough  to  eat,  is  satisfied,  has  everything  he  wants, 
and  has  but  a  short  time  left  to  live.  The  whole  fire  of 
life  has  been  used  up  by  him,  but  I  feel  without  reflection 
that  in  me  is  stored  love  for  what  is  good  and  true,  and 
hatred  for  what  is  evil  and  untrue,  and  not  vainly  so. 
I  cannot  help  but  express  it  and  live  in  its  name,  and 
every  step  of  my  life  is  a  struggle  with  evil.  I  am  obliged 
to  struggle,  and  I  will  struggle  with  them,  using  all  the 
means  which  have  already  become  clear  to  me  and  which 
will  become  clear  to  me  in  the  future.  What  is  needed 
is  a  propaganda  among  the  people,  a  closer  union  with 
the  sectarians,  the  exertion  of  an  influence  on  the  govern- 
ment, and  so  forth." 

The  feehng  which  prompts  this  is  good,  and  I  love  you 
for  this,  but  it  is  the  feeling  which  prompted  Peter  to 
provide  himself  with  a  knife  and  cut  off  the  slave's  ear. 

Imagine  what  would  have  happened  if  Jesus  had  not 
repressed  those  feehngs :  there  would  have  been  a  fight ; 
let  us  suppose  that  Jesus'  men  would  have  been  victo- 
rious and  would  have  conquered  the  whole  of  Jerusalem. 
They  w6uld  have  struck  down  men,  and  others  would 
have  struck  down  them.  What  would  have  become  of 
the  Christian  teaching? 

It  would  not  exist  now,  and  we  should  have  nothing 
to  lean  on.  We  should  be  worse  than  an  Aksakov  or 
Solov^v. 

In  order  completely  to  express  to  you  my  idea,  I  will 
tell  you  what  I  take  to  be  the  meaning  of  Christ,  a  mean- 
ing which  is  not  hazy  and  mystical,  but  clear  and  vital. 

All  say  that  the  meaning  of  Christianity  lies  in  loving 
God  and  our  neighbour  as  ourselves.     But  what  is  God  ? 


384  LETTER  TO   N.   N. 

What  is  meant  by  loving  something  incomprehensible,  — 
God  ?     What  is  a  neighbour  ?     What  am  I  ? 

These  words  have  for  me  this  meaning :  To  love  God 
means  to  love  truth. 

To  love  my  neighbour  as  myself  means  to  recognize 
the  unity  of  my  essence,  soul,  and  life  with  every  other 
human  life,  with  eternal  truth,  —  God.  So  it  is  for  me. 
But  it  is  clear  to  me  that  these  words,  which  define  noth- 
ing, may  be  understood  differently,  and  that  the  majority 
of  men  are  even  unable  to  understand  it  as  I  do.  The 
main  thing  is  that  these  words  put  no  obligations  on  me, 
or  on  any  one  else,  and  define  nothing. 

How  is  this  ?  I  am  to  love  God,  whom  each  under- 
derstands  in  his  own  way,  and  others  do  not  recognize  at 
all ;  and  I  am  to  love  my  neighbour  as  myself,  whereas 
there  is  implanted  in  me  the  love  of  self,  which  does  not 
leave  me  for  a  moment,  and  very  frequently  just  as  con- 
stant a  hatred  of  others. 

This  is  so  obscure  and  impracticable  that  it  remains  an 
empty  phrase.  It  is  my  opinion  that  it  is  a  metaphysical 
proposition,  which  is  important  in  itself,  but  when  it  is 
understood  as  a  rule  of  life,  as  a  law,  it  is  simply  stupid. 
Unfortunately  it  is  frequently  understood  as  such. 

All  this  I  say  in  order  to  make  clear  that  the  meaning 
of  Christianity,  as  of  any  other  faith,  does  not  lie  in  meta- 
physical principles,  —  these  will  always  be  the  same  with 
all  humanity  (Buddha,  Confucius,  Socrates),  —  but  in  their 
application  to  life,  in  the  Hving  representation  of  that  good 
of  every  man  and  of  all  humanity  which  is  obtained  in 
their  application,  and  in  the  determination  of  the  rules 
by  means  of  which  they  are  obtained. 

Even  in  Deuteronomy  it  says,  "Love  God  and  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself;"  but  the  application  of  this  rule 
according  to  Deuteronomy  consisted  in  circumcision,  in  the 
Sabbath,  and  in  the  criminal  law. 

The  significance  of  Christianity  consists  in  the  indica- 


LETTER   TO   N.   K.  385 

tion  of  the  possibility  and  the  happiness  of  the  execution 
of  the  law  of  love.  Christ  very  clearly  defined  in  the 
sermon  on  the  mount  how  this  law  must  and  can  be  car- 
ried out  for  His  own  happiness  and  for  that  of  all  men. 
In  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  without  which  there  would 
be  no  teaching  of  Christ,  —  in  this  all  agree, —  and  in 
which  Christ  does  not  address  the  sages,  but  the  illiterate 
and  the  tawny-handed,  and  which  is  hedged  in  with  the 
introduction,  "Whosoever  shall  break  one  of  these  least 
commandments,"  and  with  the  conclusion  that  we  must 
not  speak,  but  fulfil,  —  in  this  sermon  everything  is  said, 
and  five  commandments  are  given  as  to  how  to  fulfil  the 
teaching. 

In  the  sermon  on  the  mount  are  expounded  the  sim- 
plest, easiest,  most  comprehensible  rules  of  the  application 
of  the  love  of  God  and  of  our  neighbours  to  life,  without 
the  recognition  or  fulfilment  of  which  it  is  impossible  to 
speak  of  Christianity. 

And,  no  matter  how  strange  this  may  seem,  after 
eighteen  hundred  years  I  had  to  rediscover  these  rules 
as  something  new.  And  only  when  I  comprehended 
these  rules  did  I  comprehend  the  meaning  of  Christ's 
teaching. 

These  rules  so  marvellously  embrace  the  whole  life 
of  each  man  and  of  all  humanity  that  a  man  need  but 
imagine  the  fulfilment  of  these  rules  on  earth  in  order 
that  the  kingdom  of  righteousness  may  be  upon  earth. 

Then  analyze  all  these  rules  separately,  applying  them 
to  yourself,  and  you  will  see  that  this  incredibly  blessed 
and  enormous  result  is  obtained  through  the  fulfilment 
of  the  simplest,  most  natural  rules,  which  are  not  only 
easy,  but  even  pleasurable  to  execute. 

Do  you  think  it  is  necessary  to  add  anything  to  these 
rules  in  order  that  the  kingdom  of  righteousness  be  real- 
ized ?     It  is  not. 

Do  you  think  that  it  is  possible  to  reject  one  of  the 


386  LETTER  TO   N.   N. 

rules  without  impairing  the  kingdom  of  righteousness? 
It  is  not. 

If  I  did  not  know  anything  of  Christ's  teaching  but 
the  five  rules,  I  should  still  be  as  good  a  Christian  as 
I  am  now. 

Be  not  angry.  Commit  no  debauch.  Do  not  swear. 
Do  not  judge.  Wage  no  war.  In  this  does  the  essence 
of  Christ's  teaching  consist  for  me. 

This  clear  expression  of  Christ's  teaching  has  been 
concealed  from  men,  and  so  humanity  has  always  devi- 
ated from  it  in  two  extreme  directions.  Some,  seeing  in 
Christ's  teaching  the  teaching  of  the  salvation  of  the  sou\ 
have,  for  the  sake  of  the  grossly  conceived  eternal  life, 
removed  themselves  from  the  world,  caring  only  for  this, 
what  to  do  for  themselves,  how  to  perfect  themselves 
individually,  —  which  would  be  ridiculous,  if  it  were  not 
pitiful.  Tremendous  forces  have  been  wasted  by  these 
people,  —  and  there  have  been  many  of  them,  —  on  what 
is  impossible  and  foolish,  on  doing  good  for  themselves 
individually,  without  other  men. 

Others,  on  the  contrary,  who  did  not  believe  in  the 
future  life,  have  lived,  the  best  of  them,  only  for  others, 
but  did  not  know  and  did  not  want  to  know  what  was 
necessary  for  themselves,  and  in  the  name  of  what  they 
wanted  the  good  for  others,  or  what  good  they  wanted. 

It  seems  to  me  that  one  thing  is  impossible  without 
the  other ;  a  man  cannot  do  any  good  to  himself,  to  his* 
soul,  without  acting  for  others  and  with  others,  as  did 
the  religious  ascetics  and  others,  —  the  best  of  them, — 
and  he  cannot  do  good  to  men  if  he  does  not  know  what 
he  himself  needs,  and  in  the  name  of  what  he  is  acting, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  public  workers  who  have  no  faith. 

I  love  the  men  of  the  first  order,  but  with  all  the  forces 
of  my  soul  do  I  despise  their  teaching,  and  I  love  very 
much  the  men  of  the  second  category,  though  I  despise 
their  teaching.     Only  that  teaching  has  the  truth  which 


LETTER  TO   N.  K.  387 

points  out  an  activity,  —  life,  —  which  satisfies  the  de- 
mands of  the  soul,  and  which,  at  the  same  time,  is  a  con- 
stant activity  for  the  good  of  others. 

Such  is  the  teaching  of  Christ.  It  is  equally  distant 
from  religious  quietism,  from  the  care  for  one's  soul, 
and  from  the  revolutionary  zeal  (the  governmental,  the 
priestly  activity  is  revolutionary)  of  him  who  wants  to 
benefit  others,  though,  at  the  same  time,  he  does  not 
know  wherein  this  true,  indubitable  good  consists. 

The  Christian  life  is  such  that  it  is  impossible  to  do 
good  to  people  except  by  doing  good  to  oneself,  to  one's 
rational  soul,  and  impossible  to  do  good  to  oneself,  except 
by  doing  good  to  one's  neighbours.  The  Christian  life  is 
equally  distant  from  quietism  and  from  excessive  zeal. 

Young  people,  who  are  of  your  turn  of  mind,  are  in- 
clined to  confuse  the  true  Christian  teaching  with  the 
quietism  of  the  superstitious,  and  it  seems  to  them  that 
it  is  very  convenient  and  very  easy  to  reject  the  resistance 
to  evil  through  violence,  and  that  this  causes  the  Chris- 
tian work  to  weaken  and  lose  force.  That  is  not  true. 
You  must  understand  that  a  Christian  renounces  vio- 
lence, not  because  he  does  not  love  the  same  which  you 
desire ;  not  because  he  does  not  see  that  violence  is  the 
first  thing  which  begs  for  recognition  at  the  sight  of  evil ; 
but  because  he  sees  that  violence  removes  him  from  his 
aim,  and  does  not  bring  him  nearer  to  it,  and  that  it  is 
senseless,  as  it  is  senseless  for  a  man  who  wants  to  get 
to  the  water  of  a  spring  with  a  stick  to  strike  the  earth 
which  separates  him  from  the  spring.  For  a  man  who 
denies  violence  it  is  not  easier,  —  on  the  contrary :  it  is 
more  difficult  to  take  a  spade  and  dig,  than  to  strike  the 
earth  with  a  pole.  But  it  is  easier  for  him,  because  he 
knows  full  well  that  by  opposing  evil,  not  with  violence, 
but  with  goodness  and  truth,  he  is  doing  what  he  can, 
fulfilling  the  will  of  the  Father,  according  to  Christ's 
expression. 


388  LETTER  TO  N.   N. 

It  is  impossible  to  put  fire  out  with  fire,  to  dry  up  water 
with  water,  to  destroy  evil  with  evil.  They  have  been 
doing  that  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  world,  and 
have  reached  the  state  in  which  we  live. 

It  is  time  to  give  up  the  old  method,  and  to  take  hold 
of  the  new,  the  more  so  since  it  is  more  sensible. 

If  there  is  a  motion  forward,  it  is  so  only  thanks  to 
those  who  have  paid  with  good  for  evil. 

What  would  happen  if  only  one-millionth  part  of  those 
efforts  which  are  employed  by  people  in  order  to  fight 
evil  with  violence  were  employed  for  the  purpose  of  en- 
during evil,  without  taking  part  in  it,  and  of  shedding 
the  light  which  is  given  to  each  ?  If  it  were  so  simply 
from  the  point  of  view  of  experiment ! 

Nothing  has  been  gained  by  the  other  way,  —  so  why 
not  try  this,  the  more  so  since  it  is  clear,  obvious,  and 
joyful  ? 

Here  is  a  special  example :  let  us  recall  Eussia  for  the 
last  twenty  years.  How  much  sincere  desire  of  good 
and  readiness  for  sacrifice  has  been  wasted  by  our  young 
intellectual  classes  in  order  to  establish  the  truth,  to  do 
good  to  men !  And  what  has  been  done  ?  Nothing. 
Worse  than  nothing.  They  have  wasted  enormous  spirit- 
ual forces.  The  poles  are  broken  and  the  earth  is  beaten 
down  harder  than  ever,  so  that  the  spade  does  not  enter 
into  it. 

Instead  of  those  terrible  sacrifices  which  the  youths 
have  brought,  instead  of  shooting,  causing  explosions, 
running  printing  offices,  these  men  need  but  beheve  in 
Christ's  teaching,  that  is,  consider  that  the  Christian  Hfe 
is  the  one  rational  life.  What  if,  instead  of  that  terrible 
tension  of  forces,  one,  two,  ten,  dozens,  hundreds  of  men 
should  say,  in  reply  to  the  call  to  military  service,  "  We 
cannot  serve  as  murderers,  because  we  believe  in  Christ's 
teaching,  that  teaching  which  we  profess  and  which  for- 
bids it  by  a  special  commandment"?     The  same  they 


LETTER   TO   N.   N".  389 

might  say  in  respect  to  the  oath  and  to  the  courts ;  the 
same  they  might  say  and  do  in  respect  to  the  violence 
which  asserts  private  possession.  What  would  happen 
in  this  case  I  do  not  know ;  but  I  know  that  it  would 
advance  matters. 

I  know  that  there  is  one  truly  fruitful  way,  and  that 
is  not  to  do  what  is  contrary  to  Christ's  teaching,  but 
outright  and  openly  to  profess  it,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  any  external  aims,  but  for  one's  own  inward 
satisfaction,  which  consists  in  not  doing  any  evil  to 
others,  as  long  as  I  am  not  yet  able  to  do  them  good. 

Here  is  my  answer  to  your  questions  as  to  what  we 
should  strive  after.  We  should  strive  to  carry  out  Christ's 
rules  for  ourselves  and  disclose  to  men  the  light  and  the 
joy  of  their  execution.  All  this  is,  however,  much  better 
expressed  in  the  Gospel  (Matt.  v.  13-16). 

I  foresee  another  objection.  You  will  say :  "  It  is  not 
clear  how  to  carry  out  these  rules,  and  what  they  will 
bring  us  to.  How  are  we  according  to  these  rules  to 
bear  ourselves  in  relation  to  property,  to  the  authorities, 
to  international  relations  ? 

Do  not  think  that  there  is  anything  obscure  with 
Christ.     Everything  is  as  clear  as  dayhght. 

The  relation  to  the  authorities  is  expressed  in  the  story 
of  the  penny.  Money  —  property  —  is  a  non-Christian 
matter.  It  comes  from  the  authorities,  give  it  back  to 
the  authorities  ;  but  your  soul  is  your  own,  it  is  from  the 
God  of  truth,  and  so  give  to  no  one  but  God  your  works, 
your  rational  freedom.  They  can  kill  you,  but  they  can- 
not compel  you  to  kill,  to  do  an  un-Christian  deed. 

According  to  the  Gospel  there  is  no  property,  and  woe 
to  those  who  have  it,  that  is,  they  fare  badly.  In  rela- 
tion to  property,  a  Christian  can  only  refuse  to  take  part 
in  acts  of  violence  which  are  committed  in  the  name  of 
property,  and  may  explain  to  others  that  property  is  a 
myth,  that  there  is  no  property,  but  that  there  is  a  habit- 


390  LETTER   TO   N.   N. 

ual  act  of  violence  in  relation  to  the  use  of  things,  which 
people  call  property,  and  which  is  bad.  There  can  be  no 
question  of  property  for  a  man  who  will  give  up  his  cloak 
when  they  want  to  take  his  coat  from  him. 

Nor  can  there  be  any  question  about  international 
relations.  All  men  are  brothers,  —  all  are  alike  ;  and  if 
a  Zulu  comes  and  wants  to  roast  my  children,  there  is 
only  one  thing  which  I  can  do,  and  that  is,  to  impress 
upon  the  Zulu  that  this  is  not  advantageous  and  good  for 
him,  —  to  impress  this  upon  him,  while  submitting  to 
his  force,  —  the  more  so  since  there  is  no  profit  in  strug- 
gling with  a  Zulu :  either  he  will  overcome  me  and  will 
roast  more  of  my  children,  or  I  shall  overcome  him,  and 
my  children  will  get  ill  to-morrow  and  die  in  worse 
agonies  of  disease. 

There  is  profit  in  it,  because  by  submitting  I  certainly 
do  better,  while  by  resisting  I  do  something  doubtful. 

So  here  is  my  answer :  the  best  that  we  can  do  is  for 
us  to  carry  out  the  whole  teaching  of  Christ.  In  order  to 
do  so,  we  must  be  convinced  that  it  is  the  truth  both  for 
humanity  at  large  and  for  each  of  us  in  particular. 

Have  you  that  faith  ? 

There  are  two  more  objections,  or  questions,  which,  I 
imagine,  you  will  bring  forward.  The  first  is  this,  that 
if  we  shall  submit,  as  I  say,  to  a  Zulu  or  a  policeman, 
and  shall  give  to  a  bad  man  everything  which  he  may 
want  to  take  from  me ;  if  we  are  not  to  take  part  in  the 
governmental  institution  of  the  courts,  of  schools,  of  uni- 
versities, and  are  not  to  recognize  our  property,  —  we  shall 
fall  to  the  lowest  round  of  the  social  ladder,  and  shall  be 
trampled  upon  and  crushed:  we  shall  be  mendicants, 
tramps,  and  the  light  which  is  in  us  will  be  lost  in  vain, 
and  no  one  will  see  it,  and  so  would  it  not  be  better  to 
hold  ourselves  on  a  certain  level  of  independence  from 
want,  of  a  possibility  of  education  and  of  communion 
with  as  large  a  circle  of  men  03  possible  (the  press)  ? 


LETTER  TO  N.  N.  391 

Indeed,  so  it  seems,  but  it  only  seems  so.  And  it 
seems  so  because  we  value  highly  our  comforts  of  life, 
our  education,  and  all  those  imaginary  joys  which  they 
furnish  us,  and  we  temporize  when  we  say  so.  It  is 
not  true,  because,  no  matter  on  what  level  a  man  may 
stand,  he  will  always  be  with  men,  and  so  able  to  do  good 
to  them.  But  whether  the  professors  of  a  university 
are  better,  or  the  inmates  of  the  night  lodging-houses 
are  more  important  for  the  work  of  Christianity,  —  that 
is  a  question  which  no  man  can  decide.  In  favour  of  the 
poor  speaks  my  own  sentiment  and  Christ's  example. 
Only  the  poor  can  preach  the  Gospel,  that  is,  teach  the 
rational  life.  I  can  discuss  beautifully  and  be  sincere, 
but  no  man  will  ever  believe  me,  so  long  as  he  sees  that 
I,  living  in  a  mansion,  spend  with  my  family  in  a  day 
the  amount  of  a  year's  supply  for  an  indigent  family. 
And  as  regards  our  vaunted  education,  it  is  time  to  stop 
speaking  of  it  as  of  a  good.  It  will  easily  spoil  ninety-nine 
of  every  hundred  men,  and  it  will  certainly  not  add 
anything  to  one  man.  You  no  doubt  know  about 
Syutaev.  Here  is  an  illiterate  peasant,  but  his  influence 
on  people,  on  our  intellectual  classes,  is  greater  and  more 
important  than  that  of  all  the  Eussian  savants  and 
writers,  with  all  their  Piishkins  and  Byelmskis  taken 
together,  from  Tredyakdvski  until  our  day.  We  shall  not 
lose  much.  And  every  one  that  hath  forsaken  houses,  or 
brethren,  or  sisters,  or  father,  or  mother,  or  wife,  or  chil- 
dren, shall  receive  a  hundred  times  more  houses,  and  a 
father  here  in  this  world,  and  also  everlasting  hfe.  Many 
that  are  first  shall  be  last  (Matt.  xix.  29,  30). 

Now  another  question,  which  directly,  involuntarily 
results  from  it :  "  Well,  and  you,  Lev  Nikoldevich  ?  You 
preach  indeed,  but  how  do  you  carry  it  out  ? "  This  is  a 
most  natural  question  which  people  always  put  to  me 
and  with  which  they  triumphantly  close  my  mouth. 

**  You  preach,  but  how  do  you  hve  ? "     And  I  answer 


392  LETTER  TO   N.  N. 

that  I  do  not  preach  and  cannot  preach,  though  I  passion- 
ately wish  to  do  so. 

I  could  preach  by  my  works,  but  my  works  are  bad. 
What  I  speak  is  not  a  preaching,  but  only  a  rebuttal  of 
the  false  understanding  of  the  Christian  teaching  and  the 
explanation  of  its  real  meaning.  Its  meaning  does  not 
consist  in  reorganizing  society  in  its  name  through 
the  exercise  of  force ;  its  meaning  consists  in  finding  the 
meaning  of  Hfe  in  this  world. 

The  fulfilment  of  the  five  commandments  gives  this 
meaning. 

If  you  want  to  be  a  Christian,  you  must  fulfil  these 
commandments ;  and  if  you  do  not  want  to  fulfil  them, 
do  not  speak  to  me  of  Christianity,  outside  of  the  fulfil- 
ment of  these  commandments. 

"But,"  people  say  to  me,  "if  you  find  that  outside 
of  the  fulfilment  of  the  Christian  teaching  there  is  no 
rational  life,  and  you  love  this  rational  life,  why  do  you 
not  fulfil  the  commandments  ? " 

I  answer  that  I  am  guilty  and  wretched,  and  that  I 
deserve  contempt  for  not  fulfilling  them,  but,  at  the  same 
time,  not  so  much  in  justification  as  in  explanation  of 
my  inconsistency,  I  say :  Look  at  my  former  and  at  my 
present  life,  and  you  will  see  that  I  am  trying  to  fulfil 
I  have  not  fulfilled  one  ten -thousandth  part,  it  is  true,  and 
I  am  to  blame,  but  I  have  not  fulfilled  it,  not  because  I 
did  not  want  to,  but  because  I  could  not.  Accuse  me,  — 
I  do  so  myself,  —  but  accuse  me  only,  and  not  the  path 
over  which  I  walk,  and  which  I  point  out  to  those  who 
ask  me  where,  in  my  opinion,  the  path  is. 

If  I  know  the  way  home  and  walk  on  it,  drunk,  totter- 
ing from  side  to  side,  does  it  follow  from  this  that  the 
path  over  which  I  am  travelling  is  not  right  ? 

If  it  is  not  right,  —  show  me  another ;  but  if  I  have 
lost  my  way  and  am  tottering,  help  me,  hold  me  on  the 
right  path,  even  as  I  am  prepared  to  hold  you  up,  and  do 


LETTER  TO   N.   N.  393 

not  push  me  off,  do  not  rejoice  because  I  have  lost  my 
way,  do  not  shout  in  glee : 

"There  he  says  that  he  is  going  home,  and  yet  he  is 
making  for  the  swamp ! " 

Do  not  rejoice  at  this,  but  help  me,  assist  me !  You 
are  not  yourselves  wills-o'-the-wisp,  but  men  who  are 
making  for  home ! 

I  am  one,  and  I  certainly  do  not  wish  to  go  into  the 
swamp. 

Help  me !  My  heart  bursts  from  despair,  because  we 
have  all  gone  astray ;  and  when  I  struggle  with  all  my 
might  and  main,  you,  at  every  deviation  of  mine,  instead 
of  pitying  yourself  and  me,  push  me  into  the  swamp  and 
shout  in  delight : 

"  See,  he  is  in  the  swamp  with  us  ! " 

Such  is  my  relation  to  the  teaching  and  its  fulfilment. 
I  try  with  all  my  power  to  fulfil  it,  and  on  every  failure 
to  fulfil  it,  I  not  only  repent,  but  implore  aid  so  as  to  be 
able  to  fulfil,  and  with  joy  meet  every  man  who  like  me 
seeks  the  path,  and  obey  him. 

If  you  read  what  I  send  you,  you  will  also  understand 
the  contents  of  this  letter. 

Write  to  me.  I  am  very  glad  to  commune  with  you, 
and  will  in  agitation  await  your  answer. 

1887. 


INTRODUCTION    TO    T.  M. 
BONDAREV'S    TEACHING 

1888 


INTRODUCTION    TO    T.    M. 
BONDAREV'S   TEACHING 


This  work  is  offered  here  precisely  in  the  form  in 
which  it  was  written.  The  only  difference  from  the 
original  is  this,  that  for  its  peculiar  orthography  is  substi- 
tuted the  one  which  is  generally  used  in  books,  and  also 
this,  that  the  whole  work  is  divided  into  two  parts,  the 
exposition  and  the  supplement.  In  the  supplement  I 
have  separated  what  to  me  appeared  as  repetition  or 
departure  from  the  exposition  of  the  subject  itself. 

This  work  seems  to  me  very  remarkable  on  account  of 
its  power,  and  clearness,  and  beauty  of  language,  and 
power  of  sincerity  of  conviction,  which  may  be  seen  in 
every  line,  and,  above  all,  on  account  of  the  importance, 
correctness,  and  profundity  of  the  fundamental  idea. 

The  fundamental  idea  of  this  work  is  this : 

In  all  the  affairs  of  life  it  is  not  important  to  know 
what  it  is  that  is  good  and  necessary,  but  what  of  all 
good  and  necessary  things  or  acts  is  of  the  very  first  im- 
portance, what  of  a  second,  what  of  a  third  importance, 
and  so  forth.  If  this  is  true  in  affairs  of  life,  it  is  still 
more  true  in  matters  of  faith,  which  defines  the  duties  of 
man. 

Tatian,  a  teacher  of  the  first  times  of  the  church,  says 
that  the  misfortune  of  men  is  due  not  so  much  to  the 
fact  that  men  do  not  know  God  as  to  the  fact  that  they 

397 


398  BONDAEEV*S   TEACHING 

recognize  a  false  God  —  that  they  recognize  as  a  god 
what  is  not  God. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  doctrine  of  men's  obHgations. 

Men's  misfortune  and  evil  is  not  due  so  much  to  the 
fact  that  men  do  not  know  their  duties,  as  to  the  fact 
that  they  recognize  false  duties;  that  they  recognize  as 
their  duty  what  is  not  their  duty,  and  do  not  recognize 
as  their  duty  what  is  their  chief  duty. 

Bondar^v  asserts  that  men's  misfortunes  and  evil  are 
due  to  this,  that  they  have  recognized  as  their  religious 
duties  many  idle  and  harmful  decrees,  and  have  forgotten 
and  concealed  from  themselves  and  others  their  chief, 
first,  indubitable  duty,  which  is  expressed  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Holy  Scripture :  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt 
thou  eat  bread. 

For  people  who  believe  in  the  sacredness  and  infallibil- 
ity of  God's  word,- as  expressed  in  the  Bible,  this  com- 
mandment, given  by  God  Himself,  and  nowhere  abolished, 
is  a  sufficient  proof  of  its  truth. 

But  for  people  who  do  not  acknowledge  Holy  Scripture 
the  meaning  and  truth  of  this  proposition,  if  we  will  only 
view  it  without  prejudice,  as  a  simple  and  not  super- 
natural expression  of  human  wisdom,  is  proved  by  the 
analysis  of  the  conditions  of  human  life,  as  Bondar^v 
proves  it  in  this  work  of  his. 

An  obstacle  to  such  an  analysis  is  unfortunately  found 
in  this,  that  many  of  us  have  become  so  accustomed  to 
the  perverse  and  senseless  interpretations  by  the  theo- 
logians of  the  words  of  Holy  Scripture,  that  the  mere 
mention  that  a  certain  proposition  coincides  with  Holy 
Scripture  serves  as  a  cause  for  looking  with  contempt  on 
such  a  proposition. 

"  What  does  Holy  Scripture  mean  to  me  ?  We  know 
that  anything  you  please  may  be  based  on  it,  and  that 
everything  in  it  is  a  lie." 

But  that  is  not  true.     It  is  certainly  not  the  fault  of 


bondarey's  teaching  399 

Holy  Scripture  if  people  have  interpreted  it  wrongly,  and 
a  man  who  tells  a  truth  is  not  to  blame,  because  he 
expressed  a  truth  which  has  been  given  before,  and  espe- 
cially in  Holy  Scripture.  We  must  not  forget  that  if  we 
admit  that  what  is  called  Holy  Scripture  is  not  the 
product  of  God,  but  of  men,  there  must  be  some  good 
reason  why  this  human  production,  and  not  any  other, 
has  been  accepted  by  men  as  the  writing  of  God  Himself. 
This  reason  is  clear. 

This  Scripture  is  by  superstitious  persons  called  divine, 
because  it  is  higher  than  anything  which  men  knew,  and 
also  because  this  Scripture,  despite  the  fact  that  men 
have  all  the  time  denied  it,  has  come  down  to  us  and  con- 
tinues to  be  considered  divine.  It  is  called  divine  and 
has  come  down  to  us,  only  because  in  it  is  contained  the 
highest  human  intelHgence.  And  such  is  in  many  places 
the  writing  which  is  called  the  Bible.  And  such  is  the 
forgotten  and  omitted  utterance,  which  is  not  understood 
in  its  real  meaning,  and  which  Bondar^v  explains  and 
puts  in  his  ?.orner-stone  chapter. 

This  utterance  and  the  whole  world  of  the  life  in  Para- 
dise is  generally  comprehended  in  its  direct  meaning, 
namely,  that  all  actually  happened  as  described,  wherea-s 
the  significance  of  the  whole  passage  is  this,  that  in  a 
figurative  form  it  presents  those  as  it  were  contradictory 
tendencies  which  are  found  in  human  nature. 

Man  is  afraid  of  death  and  is  subject  to  it ;  a  man  who 
does  not  know  good  and  evil  seems  to  be  happy,  but  he 
irrepressibly  tends  to  this  knowledge :  man  loves  idleness 
and  the  gratification  of  passions  without  suffering,  and 
yet  it  is  only  labour  and  suffering  that  give  life  to  him 
and  to  his  race. 

This  utterance  is  not  important  because  it  was  pre- 
sumably made  by  God  to  Adam  himself,  but  because  it 
is  true  and  confirms  one  of  the  unquestionable  laws  of 
human  life. 


400  BONDAR^V'S   TEACHING 

The  law  of  gravity  is  not  true  because  it  was  enun- 
ciated by  Newton,  but  I  know  Newton  and  am  thankful 
to  him  because  he  discovered  for  me  the  eternal  law 
which  gave  me  an  answer  to  a  whole  series  of  phenomena. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  law,  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face 
shalt  thou  eat  bread. 

It  is  a  law  which  elucidates  to  me  a  whole  series  of 
phenomena.  And,  having  once  come  to  understand  it,  I 
can  no  longer  forget  it,  and  am  thankful  to  him  who  has 
revealed  it  to  me.  This  law  seems  very  simple  and  long 
known ;  but  it  only  seems  so,  and  to  convince  ourselves 
of  the  opposite,  we  need  but  look  around  us.  Men  not 
only  fail  to  recognize  this  law,  but  even  recognize  the 
very  opposite.  In  conformity  with  their  faith,  all  men  — 
from  the  king  to  the  beggar  —  do  not  strive  to  fulfil  this 
law,  but  to  avoid  fulfilling  it.  This  work  of  Bondar^v  is 
devoted  to  the  elucidation  of  the  eternity  and  unchange- 
ableness  of  this  law  and  the  inevitableness  of  the  calamities 
arising  from  a  departure  from  it. 

Bondar^v  calls  this  law  an  original  law  and  chief  of  all 
other  laws.  Bondar^v  proves  that  sin  (that  is,  error,  false 
act)  is  due  only  to  a  departure  from  this  law.  Of  all  the 
positive  duties  of  man,  Bondar^v  regards  it  as  the  chief, 
first,  and  invariable  duty  of  each  man  to  earn  his  bread 
with  his  own  hands  (meaning  by  bread  every  hard,  manual 
labour,  necessary  for  man's  salvation  from  starvation  and 
cold,  that  is,  his  food,  and  drink,  and  raiment,  and  house, 
and  fuel). 

Bondar^v's  fundamental  idea  is  that  this  law  (that  a 
man  must  work  in  order  to  live),  which  heretofore  has 
been  acknowledged  as  a  necessity,  must  be  recognized  as 
a  good  and  invariable  law  of  human  life. 

This  law  must  be  recognized  like  any  religious  law,  like 
the  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  the  circumcision  among  the 
Jews,  the  fulfilment  of  the  sacraments,  the  fasts  of  the  ec- 
clesiastic Christians,  the  fivefold  prayer  and  fasting  among 


'  bondakey's  teaching  401 

the  Mohammedans.  Bondar^v  says  in  one  place  that  if 
people  recognize  the  bread  work  as  their  rehgious  obliga- 
tion, no  private,  special  occupations  can  interfere  with  the 
execution  of  this  work,  just  as  no  special  occupations  can 
keep  the  people  of  the  church  from  executing  the  idleness 
of  their  holidays. 

In  all,  more  than  eighty  holidays  are  counted,  and  to 
do  the  bread  work  only  forty  days  are  needed  according 
to  Bondar^v's  calculation.  No  matter  how  strange  it  may 
at  first  appear  that  such  a  simple,  all-intelligible,  artless 
means  might  Serve  as  a  salvation  from  the  endless  exist- 
ing evils  of  humanity,  it  is  still  more  strange,  when  we 
come  to  think  of  it,  how  we,  by  leaving  it,  may  seek 
a  cure  for  our  evils  in  various  devices  and  conceits.  But 
reflect  on  the  matter,  and  you  will  see  that  it  is  so. 

A  man  ought  not  to  put  a  bottom  into  a  vat  and  ought 
to  invent  some  more  cunning  means  for  retaining  the 
water.  Such  are  all  our  cares  about  the  cure  of  existing 
evils.  Indeed,  whence  comes  all  the  misery  of  men,  if  we 
exclude  from  the  number  of  miseries  those  which  men 
have  directly  inflicted  upon  each  other  by  means  of  mur- 
ders, executions,  prisons,  frights,  and  all  kinds  of  cruelties, 
in  which  they  err  by  not  abstaining  from  violence  ? 

All  the  misery  of  men,  with  the  exception  of  direct 
violence,  is  due  to  hunger,  to  aU  kinds  of  privations,  to 
despair  in  work,  and,  by  the  side  of  these,  to  excesses,  idle- 
ness, and  vices  caused  by  them. 

What  more  sacred  duty  can  man  have  than  cooperating 
in  the  abolition  of  this  inequality,  these  calamities,  this 
need  of  some,  and  this  temptation  in  others  ?  And  how 
can  a  man  cooperate  in  the  abolition  of  these  calamities,  if 
not  by  a  participation  in  labour  which  meets  men's  needs, 
and  by  removing  from  oneself  all  superabundance  and 
idleness,  which  are  productive  of  vices  and  temptations, 
that  is,  if  not  by  doing  bread  work,  by  supporting  oneself 
with  one's  own  hands,  as  Bondar^v  says  ? 


402  BONDAR^V'S   TEACHING 

We  are  so  entangled  by  having  created  for  ourselves  so 
many  laws,  religious,  and  social,  and  domestic,  so  many 
rules,  as  Isaiah  says,  "Kule  upon  rule,  here  a  rule,  and 
there  a  rule,"  that  we  have  entirely  lost  the  meaning  of 
what  is  good  and  what  bad. 

A  man  celebrates  mass,  a  second  collects  an  army  or 
taxes  for  himself,  a  third  judges,  a  fourth  learns  out  of 
books,  a  fifth  cures,  a  sixth  teaches  people,  and  under 
these  pretexts  they  free  themselves  from  bread  work  and 
impose  it  upon  others,  forgetting  that  people  die  from 
exertion,  labour,  and  hunger,  and  that,  to  have  men 
celebrate  mass,  defend  us  by  means  of  an  army,  sit  in 
judgment,  cure,  and  teach,  it  is  necessary  above  all  else 
that  men  should  not  starve.  We  forget  that  there  may  be 
many  duties,  but  that  among  them  there  is  one  that  is  first 
and  one  that  is  last,  and  that  it  is  not  possible  to  fulfil 
the  last  without  having  fulfilled  the  first,  just  as  it  is  im- 
possible to  harrow  before  ploughing. 

It  is  to  this  first  indubitable  duty  in  the  sphere  of 
practical  activity  that  Bondar^v's  teaching  takes  us.  Bon- 
dar^v  shows  that  the  execution  of  this  duty  does  not 
interfere  with  anything,  presents  no  obstacles,  and  at  the 
same  time  saves  men  from  misery,  want,  and  temptations. 
The  fulfilment  of  this  duty  first  of  all  destroys  that 
strange  division  into  two  classes  who  hate  each  other  and 
with  flattery  conceal  their  mutual  hatred.  Bread  labour, 
says  Bondar^v,  equalizes  all  and  wiU  clip  the  wings  of 
luxury  and  of  lust. 

It  is  impossible  to  plough  and  dig  wells  in  costly  gar- 
ments and  with  clean  hands,  and  while  living  on  dainty 
food.  The  occupation  with  the  holy  work  which  is  com- 
mon to  all  men  will  bring  them  together.  Bread  labour, 
says  Bondar^v,  is  a  remedy  which  saves  humanity.  If 
men  recognized  this  original  law  as  a  divine  and  un- 
changeable law ;  if  each  man  recognized  bread  labour, 
that  is,  his  support  by  means  of  his  own  labour,  as  his 


BONDAR^V^S   TEACHING  403 

unalterable  duty,  —  all  men  would  unite  in  the  faith  of 
the  one  God,  in  the  love  of  one  another,  and  would  des- 
troy the  calamities  which  crush  men. 

We  are  so  accustomed  to  the  order  of  things  which  rec- 
ognizes the  very  opposite,  namely,  that  wealth — the 
means  for  not  doing  bread  labour  —  is  either  a  divine 
blessing  or  a  higher  social  position,  that,  without  analyzing 
this  position,  we  feel  Hke  recognizing  it  as  narrow,  one- 
sided, idle,  stupid. 

But  we  must  give  the  matter  a  serious  consideration 
and  analyze  this  position,  to  see  whether  it  is  just.  We 
analyze  all  kinds  of  rehgious  and  political  theories,  and 
we  will  also  analyze  Bondar^v's  theory  as  a  theory.  We 
shall  see  what  will  happen,  if,  according  to  Bondar^v's 
idea,  the  religious  propaganda  will  direct  its  forces  to  the 
elucidation  of  this  law,  and  all  men  will  recognize  as 
holy  the  original  law  of  labour.  What  will  happen 
then  ? 

All  will  work  and  eat  the  bread  of  their  labours,  and 
bread  and  objects  of  prime  necessity  will  not  be  objects 
of  purchase  and  sale.  What  will  happen  then?  What 
will  happen  will  be  this,  that  there  will  be  no  people  who 
perish  from  want.  If  one  man  does  not  earn  enough  for 
his  own  food  and  for  that  of  his  family,  another  man  will 
give  it  to  him.  He  will  give  it  to  him,  because  he  can 
do  nothing  else  with  the  bread,  since  it  cannot  be  sold. 
What  will  happen  will  be  this,  that  man  will  not  have 
the  temptation,  the  necessity  of  acquiring  bread  by  means 
of  cunning  or  violence,  because  he  is  not  otherwise  pro- 
vided for.  And  not  having  this  temptation,  he  will  not 
employ  violence  or  cunning.  That  will  not  be  necessary, 
as  it  is  now. 

If  he  shall  use  cunning  or  violence,  he  will  use  them 
only  because  he  likes  cunning  and  violence,  and  not  be- 
cause he  has  to,  as  is  the  case  now. 

Nor  will  the  feeble,  who  for  some  reason  are  unable  to 


404  BONDAKEV'S  TEACHING 

earn  their  bread,  or  who  for  some  reason  have  lost  it,  need 
to  sell  themselves,  their  labour,  and  sometimes  their  souls, 
for  the  sake  of  earning  bread. 

There  will  not  exist  the  present  tendency  of  all  to  free 
themselves  from  bread  labour  and  to  impose  it  upon  others, 
a  tendency  to  crush  the  feeble  with  labour  and  to  free  the 
strong  from  all  work. 

There  will  not  be  that  mood  of  human  thought  which 
directs  all  the  efforts  of  the  mind,  not  on  alleviating  the 
labour  of  the  labouring,  but  on  alleviating  and  adorning 
the  idleness  of  the  idle. 

The  participation  of  all  in  bread  labour  and  the  recog- 
nition of  the  same  as  the  chief  of  all  human  affairs  pro- 
duces the  same  effect  that  a  man  would  produce  with  a 
cart  which  some  foohsh  people  have  been  drawing  with 
the  wheels  up,  when  he  turns  it  down  and  puts  it  on  its 
wheels,  and  does  not  break  the  cart,  but  makes  it  go 
easily.  But  our  Hfe,  with  the  contempt  for  bread  labour 
and  its  rejection,  and  our  corrections  of  this  false  life,  is  a 
cart  which  we  are  dragging  with  its  wheels  up.  All  our 
corrections  of  the  matter  are  of  no  avail,  so  long  as  we  do 
not  turn  the  cart  over  and  place  it  properly. 

Such  is  Bondar^v's  idea,  which  I  share  in  full 

His  idea  presents  itself  to  me  also  in  this  manner. 

There  was  a  time  when  men  ate  one  another.  The 
consciousness  of  the  unity  of  all  men  was  developed  to 
such  an  extent  that  this  became  impossible  to  men,  and 
they  stopped  eating  one  another.  Then  there  was  a  time 
when  people  took  the  labour  of  others  by  force  and 
turned  men  into  slavery.  Men's  consciousness  developed 
to  such  an  extent  that  this  became  impossible.  This 
form  of  violence,  though  surreptitiously  retained,  has 
been  destroyed  in  its  gross  manifestations:  man  no 
longer  openly  takes  possession  of  another  man's  labour. 
In  our  day  there  exists  that  form  of  violence  by  which 
men,  exploiting  the  want  of  others,  subject  them  to  them- 


bondaki^y's  teaching  405 

selves.  According  to  Bondar^v's  idea  there  is  now  arriv- 
ing the  time  of  that  consciousness  of  the  unity  of  men, 
when  it  will  become  impossible  for  men  to  exploit  the 
want,  that  is,  the  hunger  and  the  cold,  of  others,  in  order 
to  subject  them  to  themselves,  and  when  men,  by  thus 
recognizing  as  obligatory  the  law  of  bread  labour  for  each, 
will  recognize  as  their  duty  unconditionally,  without  the 
sale  of  bread  (articles  of  prime  necessity),  to  feed,  and 
clothe,  and  warm  one  another. 

From  still  another  side  I  look  upon  this  work  of 
Bondar^v's  like  this.  We  frequently  have  occasion  to 
hear  judgments  of  the  insufficiency  of  mere  negative 
laws  or  commandments,  that  is,  of  rules  as  to  what  not 
to  do.  People  say:  "We  must  have  positive  laws  or 
commandments,  we  need  rules  as  to  what  we  should  do." 
They  say  that  the  five  commandments  of  Christ,  —  (1)  not 
to  regard  any  one  as  insignificant  or  senseless,  and  not  to 
be  angry  with  any  one,  (2)  not  to  look  upon  cohabitation 
as  a  subject  of  enjoyment,  not  to  abandon  the  mate  with 
whom  one  has  come  together  once,  (3)  not  to  swear  to 
any  one  in  anything,  not  to  bind  one's  will,  (4)  to  endure 
offences  and  not  resist  them  by  means  of  violence,  and 
(5)  not  to  consider  any  men  enemies,  and  to  love  the 
enemies  like  our  neighbours,  —  they  say  that  all  men 
ascribe  to  these  five  commandments  of  Christ  a  meaning 
about  what  ought  not  to  be  done,  and  that  there  is  no 
commandment  or  law  which  prescribes  what  ought  to  be 
done. 

Indeed,  it  may  appear  strange  why  there  are  in  Christ's 
teaching  no  definite  commandments  as  to  what  ought  to 
be  done.  But  this  may  appear  strange  only  to  him  who 
does  not  beheve  in  Christ's  teaching  itself,  which  is  not 
contained  in  the  five  commandments,  but  in  the  teaching 
of  the  truth  itself. 

The  teaching  of  the  truth,  as  expressed  by  Christ,  is 
not  to  be  found  in  the  laws  about  the  commandments,  — - 


406  BOKDAR^V'S   TEACHING 

it  is  to  be  found  in  this  alone,  —  in  the  meaning  which 
is  ascribed  to  life. 

The  meaning  of  this  teaching  is  in  this  alone,  that  Hfe 
and  the  good  of  life  are  not  to  be  found  in  personal  hap- 
piness, as  some  people  think,  but  in  serving  God  and 
men.  This  proposition  is  not  a  prescription  which  is  to 
be  carried  out  in  order  to  obtain  rewards  for  its  fulfil- 
ment ;  it  is  not  a  mystical  expression  of  something  mys- 
terious, but  the  disclosure  of  a  formerly  concealed  law  of 
life;  it  is  an  indication  of  this,  that  life  can  be  a  good 
only  with  such  a  comprehension  of  life.  And  so  all  the 
positive  teaching  of  Christ  is  expressed  in  this,  Love  God 
and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself.  There  can  be  no  elucida- 
tions of  this  proposition.     It  is  one,  because  it  is  all ! 

Christ's  laws  and  commandments,  Hke  the  Jewish  and 
Buddhist  laws  and  commandments,  are  only  indications  of 
those  conditions  in  which  the  temptations  of  the  world 
take  men  away  from  the  true  comprehension  of  life. 
And  so  there  can  be  many  laws  and  commandments ;  but 
there  can  be  but  one  positive  teaching  about  life,  about 
what  ought  to  be  done. 

The  life  of  each  man  is  a  motion  somewhere ;  whether 
a  man  wants  to  or  not,  he  moves,  he  lives.  Christ  shows 
man  his  path,  and  at  the  same  time  shows  those  devia- 
tions from  the  true  path  which  may  lead  him  on  the 
false  road ;  of  such  indications  there  may  be  many,  they 
are  the  commandments.  Christ  gives  five  such  command- 
ments, and  those  which  He  gives  are  such  that  until  now 
it  has  been  impossible  to  add  one,  or  detract  one  from 
them.  But  there  is  given  but  one  indication  of  the  direc- 
tion of  the  road,  just  as  there  can  be  but  one  straight  line 
which  indicates  direction. 

Consequently  the  idea  that  in  Christ's  teaching  there 
are  only  negative  commandments,  and  none  that  are  posi- 
tive is  correct  for  those  only  who  do  not  know  or  do  not 
believe  in  the  teaching  of  the  truth  itself,  in  the  direction 


BONDAREV'S   TEACHING  407 

itself  of  the  true  path  of  life,  as  pointed  out  hy  Christ. 
But  the  people  who  believe  in  the  truth  of  the  path  of 
life,  as  pointed  out  by  Christ,  cannot  look  for  positive 
commandments  in  His  teaching. 

The  whole  positive  activity,  the  most  varied,  which 
results  from  the  teaching  of  the  true  path  of  life,  is  clear 
and  always  indisputably  determined  for  them.  Men  who 
believe  in  the  path  of  Hfe  are,  according  to  Christ's  utter- 
ance, like  a  spring  of  living  water,  that  is,  like  a  spring 
welling  up  from  the  ground.  Their  whole  activity  resem- 
bles the  flowing  of  water  which  runs  everywhere  in  spite 
of  the  obstacles  which  detain  it.  A  man  who  believes  in 
Christ's  teaching  can  as  little  ask  what  he  is  positively 
to  do,  as  the  spring  of  water  can,  which  is  welling  up 
*  from  the  earth.  It  flows,  watering  the  earth,  grass,  trees, 
birds,  animals,  men.  The  same  does  a  man  who  beheves 
in  Christ's  teaching  about  life. 

A  man  who  believes  in  Christ's  teaching  will  not  ask 
what  to  do.  Love,  which  will  become  the  power  of  his 
life,  will  show  him  correctly  and  indubitably  when  and 
what  to  do  first,  and  what  last. 

To  say  nothing  of  those  indications  with  which  Christ's 
teaching  and  our  heart  are  filled,  that  the  first  and  most 
exacting  work  of  love  consists  in  giving  food  to  the  hun- 
gry and  drink  to  the  thirsty,  clothing  the  naked,  helping 
the  poor  and  the  imprisoned,  —  the  whole  of  Christ's 
teaching,  and  reason,  and  conscience,  and  feeling,  every- 
thing urges  us,  before  all  other  works  of  love  toward  the 
living,  to  support  this  life  of  our  brothers,  —  to  free  them 
from  suffering  and  death,  which  overcome  them  in  their 
unequal  struggle  with  Nature,  —  that  is,  it  urges  us  on  to 
the  most  necessary  work  for  the  Hfe  of  men,  —  to  the 
simplest,  foremost,  gross,  hard  labour  on  the  land. 

As  the  spring  of  water  cannot  ask  whither  to  send  its 
water,  whether  to  spurt  the  water  upward  on  the  grass 
and  the  leaves  of  the  trees,  or  to  pour  forth  downward  to 


408  BONDAREV'S    TEACHING 

the  roots  of  the  grass  and  the  trees,  even  so  man  who 
believes  in  the  teachiug  of  the  truth  cannot  ask  what  he 
must  do  first,  whether  to  instruct  the  people,  to  defend 
them,  to  give  them  the  pleasures  of  life,  or  to  support 
them  who  are  perishing  from  want.  And  just  as  the 
spring  flows  on  the  surface  and  fills  the  ponds  and  gives 
the  animals  and  men  to  drink  only  after  it  has  watered 
the  earth,  so  a  man  who  believes  in  the  teaching  of  the 
truth  can  cooperate  with  the  less  pressing  demands  of 
men  only  after  he  has  satisfied  the  first  demand,  that  is, 
after  he  has  contributed  to  their  support,  to  their  libera- 
tion from  ruin,  in  consequence  of  a  struggle  with  want. 
A  man  who  professes  the  teaching  of  truth  and  of  love 
not  in  words,  but  in  deeds,  cannot  be  mistaken  as  to  where 
he  must  first  of  all  direct  his  activity.  A  man  who  posits 
the  meaning  of  life  in  the  service  of  others  can  never 
make  the  mistake  of  beginning  to  serve  a  hungry  and 
freezing  man  by  writing  resolutions,  casting  cannon,  man- 
ufacturing elegant  articles,  or  playing  the  violin  or  the 
piano. 

Love  cannot  be  foolish ! 

Just  as  love  of  man  does  not  permit  one  to  read  novels 
to  a  hungry  man,  or  to  warm  up  a  freezing  person  by 
putting  on  him  earrings  and  bracelets,  even  so  love  of , 
man  does  not  permit  the  ministration  to  them  to  consist 
in  cheering  the  satiated,  abandoning  the  hungry  and  the 
freezing  to  fate. 

Love  that  is  true,  not  in  words  but  in  deeds,  cannot  be 
foolish ;  it  is  only  love  which  gives  penetration  and 
wisdom,  and  so  a  man  who  is  permeated  by  love  will 
make  no  mistake  and  will  always  do  that  first  which  his 
love  of  men  demands,  —  what  supports  the  life  of  the 
hungry,  the  naked,  the  oppressed;  and  what  support© 
the  life  of  the  hungry,  the  freezing,  and  the  oppressed  is 
the  struggle,  the  direct  struggle  with  Nature. 

Only  he  who  wants  to  deceive  himself  and  others  can, 


BONDAREV'S    TEACHING  409 

in  moments  of  danger  and  of  men's  struggle  with  want, 
evade  bringing  aid,  increase  men's  want,  and  assure  him- 
self and  those  who  are  perishing  in  his  sight  that  he  is 
busy  finding  or  inventing  means  for  their  salvation. 

Not  one  sincere  man,  who  puts  his  life  into  the  minis- 
tration to  others,  will  say  this.  And  if  he  says  it,  he  will 
never  find  in  his  conscience  a  confirmation  of  his  decep- 
tion ;  he  will  find  it  only  in  the  tricky  devilish  teaching 
about  the  division  of  labour.  But  in  all  the  expressions 
of  human  wisdom,  from  Confucius  to  Mohammed,  he  will 
find  one  thing  only ;  he  wiU  find  it  with  particular  force 
in  the  Gospel ;  he  will  find  the  demand  for  serving  men 
not  according  to  the  theory  of  the  division  of  labour,  but 
in  the  simplest,  most  natural,  and  only  necessary  means ; 
he  will  find  the  demand  for  serving  the  sick,  the  impris- 
oned, the  hungry,  and  the  freezing.  But  it  is  impossible 
to  offer  aid  to  the  sick,  the  imprisoned,  the  hungry,  and 
the  freezing  in  any  other  way  than  by  means  of  one's  im- 
mediate, present  labour,  because  the  sick,  the  hungry,  and 
the  freezing  do  not  wait,  but  die  of  hunger  and  of  cold. 

To  a  man  who  professes  the  teaching  of  the  truth,  his 
life  itself,  which  consists  in  serving  others,  will  point  out 
that  original  law  which  is  expressed  in  the  first  book  of 
Genesis,  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread, 
which  Bondar^v  calls  the  original  law  and  proves  to  be 
positive. 

This  law  is  indeed  such  for  men  who  do  not  acknowl- 
edge the  meaning  of  life  which  is  revealed  to  men  by 
Christ,  and  such  it  was  for  men  before  Christ,  and  such 
it  wiU  remain  for  men  who  do  not  acknowledge  Christ's 
teaching.  It  demands  that  each  should  live  on  his  labour 
according  to  the  will  of  God,  as  expressed  in  the  Bible 
and  in  reason.  This  law  is  positive.  Such  is  this  law 
until  the  meaning  of  life  has  been  revealed  to  men  in  the 
teaching  of  the  truth. 

But  with  the  higher  consciousness  of  the  meaning  of 


410  BONDAREV'S   TEACHING 

life,  revealed  by  Christ,  the  law  of  bread  labour,  remain- 
ing as  true  as  ever,  becomes  only  a  part  of  the  one  positive 
teaching  of  Christ  about  serving  men,  and  receives  the 
significance,  not  of  a  positive,  but  of  a  negative  law.  This 
law,  with  a  Christian  consciousness,  points  only  to  an  old 
temptation  of  men,  to  what  men  must  not  do  in  order 
that  they  may  not  deviate  from  the  path  of  true  life. 

For  a  believer  in  the  Old  Testament,  who  does  not 
acknowledge  the  teaching,  this  law  has  the  following 
meaning  :  "  Earn  your  bread  with  your  own  hands."  But 
for  a  Christian  it  has  a  negative  significance.  This  law 
says:  "Do  not  assume  it  as  possible  to  serve  people  by 
swallowing  up  the  labours  of  others  and  by  not  earning 
your  own  sustenance  by  your  hands." 

This  law  is  for  a  Christian  an  indication  of  one  of  the 
most  ancient  offences  from  which  people  suffer.  Against 
this  offence,  terrible  in  its  consequences  and  so  old  that 
we  can  with  difficulty  recognize  it  as  a  deception,  and 
not  as  a  natural  human  property,  this  teaching  of  Bonda- 
r^v  is  directed  :  it  is  equally  binding  on  him  who  beheves 
in  the  Old  Testament,  and  on  the  Christian  who  believes  in 
the  Holy  Scripture,  and  on  him  who  does  not  beheve  in  the 
Scripture,  but  follows  reason  alone,  and  on  him  who  recog- 
nizes the  teaching  of  the  truth. 

Eeader  and  dear  brother,  whoever  you  may  be,  I  love 
you,  and  not  only  do  not  wish  to  grieve  and  offend  you, 
to  bring  evil  into  your  life,  but  want  this  much,  —  to 
serve  you. 

I  could  write  a  great  deal,  and  I  feel  like  doing  so,  in 
order  to  prove  the  truth  of  this  proposition  and  overthrow 
the  arguments  which  I  hear  against  it.  But  no  matter 
how  much  I  may  write,  how  well  I  may  write,  how  logi- 
cally right  I  may  be,  I  shall  not  convince  you,  if  you 
struggle  with  your  reason  against  mine,  and  your  heart 
will  remain  cold. 

I  am  afraid  of  that ;  I  am  afraid  of  harming  you  with 


bondakey's  teaching  411 

the  pride  of  my  reason,  with  my  coldness.  All  I  ask  you 
is  not  to  dispute,  not  to  prove,  but  to  ask  your  heart. 

Whoever  you  may  be,  no  matter  how  talented  you  may 
be,  or  how  good,  or  in  what  condition  you  may  be,  can 
you  be  calm  at  your  tea,  your  dinner,  at  your  business  of 
state,  of  art,  of  learning,  of  medicine,  or  teaching,  when 
you  hear  or  see  at  your  porch  a  hungry,  freezing,  sick, 
weary  man  ?  No,  you  cannot !  But  they  are  always 
there,  if  not  at  the  porch,  they  are  ten  sazhens,  ten  versts 
away.     They  are  there,  and  you  know  it. 

You  cannot  be  calm,  you  cannot  have  joys  which  are 
not  poisoned  by  them.  In  order  that  you  may  not  see 
them  at  the  porch,  you  must  bar  them  from  you,  keep  them 
from  you  by  your  coldness,  or  go  somewhere  where  they 
are  not  to  be  found.  But  they  are  everywhere !  And  even 
if  a  place  were  found  where  you  would  not  see  them,  you 
will  nowhere  get  away  from  the  consciousness  of  the 
truth.     What  is  to  be  done  ? 

You  know  yourself,  and  this  whole  book  tells  you 
what. 

Descend  to  the  bottom  (to  what  to  you  seems  to  be 
the  bottom,  but  what  is  the  top),  stand  by  the  side 
of  those  who  feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the  freezing, — 
fear  nothing,  —  it  will  not  be  worse,  but  better  in  jBvery 
respect.  Stand  in  a  row  with  them,  with  unskilled  hands 
take  hold  of  the  first  work  which  feeds  the  hungry  and 
clothes  those  who  are  cold,  —  of  the  bread  labour,  of  the 
struggle  with  Nature.  —  and  you  will  feel  for  the  first 
time  a  firm  soil  under  your  feet :  you  will  feel  that  you 
are  at  home ;  that  you  are  free  and  firmly  settled ;  that 
you  have  nowhere  else  to  go  to,  and  you  wiU  experience 
those  whole-hearted  unmixed  joys  which  you  will  find 
nowhere,  behind  no  doors  and  behind  no  curtains. 

You  will  learn  of  joys  which  you  did  not  know ;  you 
wiU  know  for  the  first  time  those  simple,  strong  men, 
your  brothers  who,  far  away  from  you,  have  so  far  fed  you, 


412  BONDAR^V'S    TEACHING 

and,  to  your  surprise,  you  will  discover  in  them  such  vir- 
tues as  you  did  not  know  before ;  you  will  see  in  them 
such  modesty,  such  goodness,  namely  toward  you,  which, 
you  will  feel,  you  do  not  deserve. 

Instead  of  contempt  and  ridicule,  which  you  expected, 
you  will  see  such  kindness,  such  gratitude,  such  respect 
for  you,  because,  having  lived  all  your  life  by  their  labours, 
and  despising  them,  you  have  suddenly  come  to  your 
senses  and  are  willing  to  help  them  with  your  unslalful 
hands. 

You  will  see  that  what  to  you  appeared  as  a  little 
island,  on  which  you  have  been  sitting,  to  save  yourself 
from  the  sea  which  was  swamping  you,  is  a  bog  in  which 
you  have  been  sinking ;  and  that  the  sea  of  which  you 
have  been  afraid  is  firm  ground  over  which  you  will  pass 
safely,  calmly,  joyfully,  and  it  cannot  be  otherwise,  for 
from  the  deception  which  you  did  not  enter  yourself,  but 
were  led  into,  you  will  make  your  way  out  to  truth,  and 
from  the  departure  from  the  will  of  God  you  will  pass 
over  to  its  fulfilment. 


LETTER   TO   A    FRENCHMAN 

1889 


LETTER    TO   A    FRENCHMAN 


You  ask  me  why  manual  labour  presents  itself  to  us 
as  one  of  the  inevitable  conditions  of  true  happiness  ? 

Is  it  necessary  to  deprive  ourselves  of  mental  activity 
in  the  sphere  of  science  and  art,  which  to  us  seems  in- 
compatible with  manual  labour  ? 

To  these  questions  I  have  answered  as  well  as  I  could 
in  my  book  entitled  What  Shall  We  Do  Then  ? 

I  have  never  looked  upon  manual  labour  as  a  funda- 
mental principle,  but  as  a  most  simple  and  natural  appli- 
cation of  moral  principles,  an  appHcation  which  presents 
itself  first  of  all  to  every  sincere  man. 

In  our  corrupt  society  (the  society  which  is  called 
civilized)  we  have  to  speak  above  all  else  of  manual 
labour  only  because  the  chief  defect  up  to  the  present 
time  has  been  a  tendency  to  free  oneself  from  manual 
labour  and  to  make  use,  without  any  mutual  exchange, 
of  the  labour  of  the  ignorant  and  dispossessed  poor 
classes,  who  are  in  a  state  of  slavery  resembhng  the 
slavery  of  the  ancient  world. 

The  first  sign  of  the  sincerity  of  the  men  of  our  class, 
who  profess  Christian,  philosophical,  or  humanitarian 
principles,  is  a  striving  to  free  themselves  as  much  as 
possible  from  this  injustice. 

The  simplest  and  handiest  means  for  attaining  this  is 
manual  labour,  which  begins  by  attending  to  one's  own 
needs. 

416 


416  LETTER   TO   A   FRENCHMAN" 

I  will  never  believe  in  the  sincerity  of  the  philosophical 
and  moral  principles  of  a  man  who  makes  his  chamber- 
maid carry  out  his  vessel. 

The  simplest  and  shortest  rule  of  morality  consists  in 
making  others  serve  one  as  little  as  possible,  and  in  serv- 
ing others  as  much  as  possible;  in  demanding  as  little 
as  possible  from  others,  and  giving  to  others  as  much  as 
possible. 

This  rule,  which  gives  to  our  existence  a  rational 
meaning,  and  the  good  as  its  consequence,  at  the  same 
time  solves  all  the  difficulties,  including  the  one  which 
presents  itself  to  you.  This  rule  points  out  the  place 
which  is  to  be  occupied  by  mental  activity,  by  science,  by 
art.  In  following  this  rule,  I  am  happy  and  satisfied  only 
when  in  my  activity  I  am  unquestionably  sure  that  it  is 
useful  to  others.  The  gratification  of  those  for  whom  I 
act  is  already  a  surplus,  a  superabundance  of  happiness, 
on  which  I  cannot  count  and  which  cannot  influence  me 
in  the  choice  of  my  actions. 

My  firm  conviction  that  what  I  do  is  not  useless  and 
not  harmful,  but  good  for  others,  —  this  conviction  is  the 
chief  condition  of  my  happiness.  And  it  is  this  which 
makes  a  moral  and  sincere  man  involuntarily  prefer 
manual  labour  to  scientific  and  altruistic  work. 

In  order  that  my  labours  as  an  author  may  be  exploited, 
the  work  of  printers  is  needed  ;  to  carry  out  my  symphony 
I  need  the  work  of  musicians  ;  in  order  to  carry  out  ex- 
periments I  need  the  labours  of  those  who  make  appli- 
ances and  instruments  for  our  cabinets ;  for  the  picture 
which  I  am  painting  I  need  the  men  who  prepare  the 
paints  and  the  canvas,  —  but  at  the  same  time  the  works 
which  I  produce  may  be  useful  to  men,  or  they  may  be 
(as  in  the  majority  of  cases  they  are)  quite  useless  and 
even  harmful. 

How,  then,  can  I  busy  myself  with  occupations  the 
usefulness  of  which  is  very  doubtful,  and  for  which   I 


LETTER   TO   A   FRENCHMAN  417 

have  to  put  others  into  requisition,  while  about  me,  in 
front  of  me,  there  is  an  endless  quantity  of  things  which 
are  all  unquestionably  more  useful  for  others,  and  for  the 
production  of  which  I  need  nobody  ?  For  example,  to 
carry  a  burden  for  him  who  is  fatigued  from  it ;  to  plough 
up  the  field  of  a  sick  farmer ;  to  dress  a  wound,  and  so 
forth,  to  say  nothing  of  the  thousands  of  things  which 
surround  us,  for  the  production  of  which  no  external  aid 
is  needed,  which  give  immediate  satisfaction  to  those  for 
whom  they  are  produced ;  in  addition  to  these  there  is  a 
vast  number  of  acts  of  a  different  kind,  such  as,  planting 
a  tree,  raising  a  calf,  cleaning  a  well,  —  and  all  these  acts 
are  unquestionably  useful,  and  a  sincere  man  cannot  help 
preferring  them  to  occupations  which  demand  the  labour 
of  others  and  which,  at  the  same  time,  are  of  doubtful 
usefulness. 

The  calhng  of  the  prophet  teacher  is  a  high  and  noble 
one.  But  we  know  what  the  priests  are  who  regard 
themselves  as  the  only  teachers,  because  they  possess  the 
possibility  of  compelling  others  to  regard  them  as  such. 
Not  he  is  a  prophet  who  receives  the  education  and  the 
culture  of  a  prophet,  but  he  who  has  the  inner  conviction 
that  he  is,  must  be,  and  cannot  help  but  be  that  and 
nothing  else. 

This  conviction  is  rarely  met  with,  and  can  be  proved 
only  by  the  sacrifices  which  a  man  brings  to  his  calling. 

The  same  holds  good  in  true  science  and  true  art. 
The  violinist  Lulli  runs  at  the  danger  of  his  life  from  the 
kitchen  to  the  garret,  in  order  to  play  on  his  viohn,  and 
by  this  sacrifice  he  proves  the  sincerity  of  his  calling. 
But  for  a  student  of  the  conservatory,  a  university  stu- 
dent, whose  only  duty  consists  in  learning  what  is  being 
taught,  it  is  impossible  to  prove  the  truth  of  his  calling. 
They  only  make  use  of  the  condition  which  presents 
itself  to  them  as  advantageous. 

Manual  labour  is  a  duty  and  happiness  for  all  men; 


418  LETTER   TO   A   FRENCHMAN 

the  activity  of  the  mind  and  imagination  is  an  exclusive 
activity :  it  becomes  a  duty  and  happiness  for  those  only 
who  are  called  to  it.  A  calling  may  be  discovered  and 
proved  only  by  a  sacrifice,  which  the  scholar  or  the  artist 
makes  of  his  rest  and  comfort,  in  order  to  devote  himself 
to  his  calling.  A  man  who  continues  to  fulfil  his  obliga- 
tions of  sustaining  his  hfe  by  the  work  of  his  hands,  and 
who,  in  spite  of  this,  deprives  himself  of  hours  of  rest  and 
sleep,  in  order  to  create  in  the  sphere  of  the  mind  and  the 
imagination,  thus  proves  his  calling  and  creates  in  his 
sphere  what  is  necessary  for  men.  But  he  who  rids  him- 
self of  universal  moral  obligations  and  under  the  pretext 
of  a  special  infatuation  for  art  or  for  science,  arranges  for 
himself  the  life  of  a  drone,  creates  only  false  science  and 
false  art. 

The  fruits  of  true  science  and  true  art  are  the  fruits  of 
sacrifice,  and  not  the  fruits  of  certain  material  prerogatives. 

But  what  will  then  become  of  art  and  of  science  ? 

How  often  I  hear  this  question  from  people  who  are 
not  at  all  interested  in  science  or  in  art,  and  who  have  not 
the  slightest  conception  of  what  science  and  art  are !  One 
would  think  that  these  people  have  near  at  heart  the  good 
of  humanity,  and  that  it,  according  to  their  conviction, 
cannot  be  obtained  in  any  other  way  than  by  the  evolu- 
tion of  what  they  call  science  and  art. 

But  what  a  strange  phenomenon  this  is,  that  men 
defend  the  usefulness  of  what  is  useful ! 

Is  it  possible  there  can  be  men  so  senseless  as  to  deny 
the  usefulness  of  what  is  useful  ?  And  is  it  possible 
there  are  still  more  ridiculous  people  who  regard  it 
as  their  duty  to  defend  the  usefulness  of  what  is  useful  ? 

There  are  artisans,  and  there  are  farmers,  and  no  one 
has  ever  had  the  courage  to  deny  their  usefulness ;  and 
never  will  a  labourer  stop  to  prove  the  usefulness  of  his 
labour.  He  produces,  and  his  product  is  indispensable 
and  good  for  others.     People  make  use  of  it,  and  no  one 


LETTER   TO   A   FRENCHMAN  419 

doubts  its  usefulness;  and  still  less  does  one  stop  to 
prove  it.  The  workmen  of  art  and  of  science  are  in  the 
same  situation.  Why,  then,  are  there  found  people  who 
make  an  effort  to  prove  their  usefulness  ? 

The  reason  is  this,  that  the  true  workers  of  science  and 
of  art  do  not  secure  any  rights  to  themselves :  they  give 
the  products  of  their  labours,  these  products  are  useful, 
and  they  are  in  no  need  of  rights  and  of  their  confirma- 
tion. But  the  vast  majority  of  those  who  consider  them- 
selves savants  and  artists  know  full  well  that  what  they 
produce  is  not  worth  what  they  use  up,  and  so  they  have 
recourse  to  all  kinds  of  means,  like  the  priests  of  all  times 
and  of  all  nations,  in  order  to  prove  that  their  activity  is 
indispensable  for  the  good  of  humanity. 

True  science  and  true  art  have  always  existed,  and  will 
always  exist,  Hke  all  other  branches  of  human  activities, 
and  it  is  impossible  and  useless  to  deny  or  defend  them. 

The  false  position  which  science  and  art  occupy  in  our 
society  proves  only  that  the  people  who  call  themselves 
civilized,  with  the  savants  and  the  artists  at  their  head, 
form  a  caste  with  all  the  prophets  who  are  inherent  in 
each  caste.  They  debase  and  minimize  the  principle 
in  the  name  of  which  a  caste  is  formed.  Instead  of  the 
true  religion  they  preach  a  false  one ;  instead  of  the  true 
science  they  produce  a  false  one.  The  same  is  true  of 
art.  They  he  as  a  heavy  burden  on  the  people,  and  be- 
sides deprive  the  people  of  the  light,  in  vain  trying 
to  show  that  they  are  disseminating  it.  And,  what  is 
worst  of  all,  their  acts  always  contradict  the  principles 
which  they  profess. 

Without  considering  those  who  maintain  the  untenable 
principle  of  science  for  science's  sake,  and  of  art  for  art's 
sake,  they  are  all  obliged  to  prove  that  science  and  art 
are  indispensable,  because  they  serve  the  good  of  human- 
ity. 

But  wherein  does  this  good  consist  ? 


420  LBTTEK  TO   A   FRENCHMAK 

By  what  signs  can  the  good  be  told  from  the  evil  ? 

The  adherents  of  science  and  of  art  obviate  this  ques- 
tion. They  even  assume  that  the  determination  of  the 
good  is  not  possible  and  is  standing  outside  of  science 
and  outside  of  art.  The  good  in  general,  they  say,  what 
is  good  and  beautiful,  cannot  be  defined. 

But  they  are  lying  ! 

At  all  times,  humanity,  in  its  forward  movement,  has 
been  doing  nothing  but  defining  what  is  good  and  beauti- 
ful. Goodness  and  beauty  were  defined  a  thousand  years 
ago ;  but  this  definition  does  not  suit  them,  the  high 
priests :  it  discloses  their  emptiness  and  the  harmfulness 
of  what  they  call  science  and  art,  which  is  even  contrary 
to  goodness  and  beauty. 

The  Brahmins,  the  Buddhists,  the  Chinese  sages,  the 
Jews,  the  Egyptians,  the  Greek  stoics,  have  defined  the 
good  in  the  simplest  way.  Everything  which  introduces 
union  among  men  is  goodness  and  beauty.  Everything 
which  disunites  them  is  evil  and  ugliness.  All  men 
know  this  definition.     It  is  imprinted  in  our  hearts. 

Goodness  and  beauty  are  for  man  that  which  unites 
men.  And  so,  if  the  adherents  of  science  and  of  art  have 
indeed  the  good  of  humanity  in  view,  they  must  move 
forward  only  those  sciences  which  lead  to  that  end.  And 
if  that  were  so,  there  would  be  no  juridical,  no  military 
sciences,  no  pohtical  economy,  the  aim  of  which  is  the 
good  of  certain  societies  and  the  ruin  of  others.  If  the 
good  were  actually  the  aim  of  science  and  of  the  arts, 
the  pretensions  of  the  positive  sciences,  which  frequently 
have  no  relation  to  the  true  good  of  humanity,  would 
never  have  acquired  such  an  inexplicable  importance ;  the 
same  may  be  said  of  the  productions  of  art,  which  are 
only  good  for  the  excitation  of  corrupt  old  men  and  for 
the  pastime  of  idle  people. 

Human  wisdom  does  not  at  all  consist  in  the  quantity 
of  knowledge  which  we  may  acquire.     Wisdom  does  not 


LETTER   TO   A   FRENCHMAN  421 

consist  in  knowing  as  much  as  possible ;  it  consists  in  the 
knowledge  of  that  order  in  which  it  is  useful  to  know 
things  ;  wisdom  consists  in  the  knowledge  of  what  branch 
of  knowledge  is  more  or  less  important.  But  of  all  the 
branches  of  knowledge  the  most  necessary  to  man  is  that 
of  how  to  live,  doing  the  least  possible  amount  of  evil 
and  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  good ;  and  of  aU  the 
arts  the  most  important  is  the  one  which  teaches  us  to 
avoid  evil  and  to  introduce  the  good  with  the  least 
effort. 

And  it  has  happened  that  among  all  the  sciences  and 
arts,  which  pretend  to  serve  humanity,  the  first  science 
and  the  first  art  in  importance  not  only  do  not  exist  in 
fact,  but  are  even  excluded  from  the  list  of  the  sciences 
and  the  arts. 

What  in  our  society  is  called  science  and  art  is  nothing 
but  an  immense  soap-bubble,  a  superstition,  into  which 
we  generally  fall  as  soon  as  we  free  ourselves  from  the 
superstition  of  the  church. 

In  order  clearly  to  see  the  road  over  which  we  have 
to  travel,  we  must  raise  the  hood  which  keeps  our  head 
warm,  but  interferes  with  our  seeing  the  road  ahead  of  us. 
The  offence  is  great. 

If  we  are  not  placed  in  that  situation  by  our  birth,  we 
by  our  labour  or  cunning  reach  out  for  the  upper  rounds 
of  the  social  ladder,  for  the  privileged  social  position  of 
the  priests  of  civilization,  and  like  the  priests.  Brahmins 
or  Catholics,  we  need  a  great  deal  of  sincerity  and  a  great 
deal  of  love  of  truth  and  of  goodness,  in  order  to  sub- 
ject to  doubt  those  principles  which  condition  such  an 
advantageous  position. 

But  for  a  serious  man,  who,  like  you,  puts  to  himself 
the  question  of  life,  there  is  no  choice :  in  order  that  he 
may  be  able  to  see  clearly,  he  must  free  himself  from 
prejudice,  although  the  prejudice  may  be  advantageous 
for  him. 


422  LETTER   TO   A   FRENCHMAN 

This  is  a  condition  siifie  qua  non. 

It  is  useless  to  speak  with  a  man  who  accepts  anything 
whatever  on  faith.  If  the  field  of  thought  is  not  com- 
pletely free,  a  man  may  dispute  and  reflect  for  a  long  time 
and  yet  not  advance  an  iota  in  the  knowledge  of  truth. 
Every  rational  judgment  will  be  shattered  against  the  pre- 
conceived tenets  which  are  based  on  faith  alone. 

There  is  a  religious  faith  and  a  faith  in  the  progress  of 
humanity.  They  are  precisely  alike.  A  Catholic  says  to 
himself :  "  I  may  reflect,  but  only  within  the  limits  of 
Holy  Writ  and  Tradition,  which  possess  the  truth  in  all 
its  fulness  and  unchangeability." 

The  believer  in  civilization  says :  "  My  reflection  stops 
before  the  two  foundations  of  civilization,  science  and 
art." 

"Our  science,"  he  says,  "is  the  totality  of  the  true 
knowledge  of  man;  if  science  does  not  yet  possess  the 
full  truth,  it  will  possess  it  in  the  future.  Our  art,  to- 
gether with  the  classical  art,  is  the  one  true  art." 

The  religious  superstitions  say :  "  Outside  of  man  exists 
the  thing  in  itself,  as  the  Germans  say,  and  that  is  the 
church." 

The  people  of  our  society  say :  "  Outside  of  man  exists 
civihzation  in  itself." 

We  can  easily  see  the  illogicalness  in  the  religious 
superstitions,  because  we  do  not  share  them.  But  the 
religious  believer,  for  example  a  Cathohc,  is  fully  con- 
vinced that  there  is  no  other  truth  but  his.  And  it 
seems  to  him  that  the  source  of  his  truth  is  proved  by 
disputation. 

Similarly,  when  we  are  ourselves  enmeshed  in  the  false 
belief  in  our  civilization,  we  are  almost  unable  to  see  the 
illogicalness  of  our  reflections,  which  are  all  directed 
toward  the  proof  that  of  all  times  and  nations  there  is 
only  our  time,  only  a  few  millions  of  people,  inhabiting  a 
peninsula  called  Europe,  who  are  in  possession  of  the  true 


LETTER  TO  A  FRENCHMAN  423 

civilization,  which  consists  in  the  true  science  and  the 
true  art. 

In  order  to  know  the  true  meaning  of  life,  which  is  so 
simple,  there  is  no  need  of  positive  philosophy,  nor  of  pro- 
found knowledge;  all  that  is  necessary  is  to  have  no 
prejudices. 

We  must  arrive  at  the  condition  of  a  child  or  of  Des- 
cartes, and  we  must  say  to  ourselves :  "  I  know  nothing, 
believe  nothing,  and  want  nothing  but  to  find  out  the 
true  meaning  of  life,  which  I  must  live." 

The  answer  has  been  given  since  remote  antiquity,  and 
this  answer  is  clear  and  simple. 

My  inner  feeling  tells  me  that  I  want  the  good  and 
happiness  for  myself  only. 

Eeason  tells  me :  "  All  men,  all  beings,  want  the  same." 

All  beings,  which,  like  me,  seek  their  personal  happi- 
ness, will  evidently  crush  me.  And  so  I  cannot  find  that 
happiness  in  the  striving  after  which  my  life  consists. 
The  striving  after  happiness  is  my  Hfe,  and  reason  shows 
me  that  this  striving  is  useless,  and  that,  therefore,  I 
cannot  live. 

Simple  reflection  shows  me  that  in  that  order  of  the 
world,  where  all  beings  strive  only  after  their  personal 
good,  I,  a  being  striving  after  the  same,  cannot  get  this 
good.     And  I  cannot  Hve ! 

But,  in  spite  of  such  a  clear  reflection,  we  live  and  seek 
happiness  and  the  good.  We  say  to  ourselves :  "  I  could 
attain  the  good,  be  happy,  if  only  all  the  other  beings 
loved  me  more  than  themselves." 

This  is  impossible !  But,  in  spite  of  it,  we  all  Hve,  and 
our  whole  activity,  all  our  strivings  after  wealth,  family, 
glory,  power,  —  all  that  is  only  attempts  at  compelling 
other  people  to  love  me  better  than  they  love  themselves. 

Wealth,  glory,  power,  give  us  the  semblance  of  such  a 
state,  and  we  are  satisfied :  for  a  moment  we  forget  that 
these  are  all  illusions,  and  not  reality. 


or  THE 


424  LETTER   TO   A   FRENCHMAN 

All  beings  love  themselves  better  than  us,  and  happi- 
ness is  impossible ! 

There  are  men  (and  their  number  is  growing  from  day 
to  day)  who  cannot  solve  this  difficulty,  and  who  kill 
themselves,  saying  thjt  life  is  an  empty  and  foolish 
jest. 

And  yet  the  solution  of  the  problem  is  more  than 
simple,  and  presents  itself  of  its  own  accord. 

I  can  be  happy  only  in  an  order  of  the  world  in  which 
all  beings  would  love  others  more  than  themselves.  The 
whole  world  would  be  happy,  if  its  beings  did  not  love 
themselves,  but  their  like. 

I  am  a  being,  a  man,  and  reason  gives  me  the  law  of 
the  universal  good,  and  I  must  follow  this  law  of  my 
reason  —  I  must  love  others  better  than  myself. 

A  man  need  but  reflect  thus,  in  order  that  life  might 
suddenly  present  itself  to  him  under  an  entirely  different 
angle  of  vision  than  before. 

The  beings  destroy  one  another,  but  at  the  same  time 
love  and  help  one  another.  Life  is  not  supported  by  the 
passion  of  destruction,  but  by  the  passion  of  mutuality, 
which  in  the  language  of  our  heart  is  called  love. 

In  so  far  as  I  can  see  the  evolution  of  the  life  of  the 
world,  I  see  in  it  the  manifestation  of  nothing  but  this 
principle  of  mutual  help.  The  whole  of  history  is  noth- 
ing but  an  ever  clearer  and  clearer  manifestation  of  this 
one  principle  of  mutual  concord  of  all  beings. 

The  reflection  is  also  confirmed  by  historical  and  by 
personal  experience,  but,  independently  of  the  reflection, 
man  finds  the  most  convincing  proof  of  the  justice  of  this 
reflection  in  his  inner  immediate  feeling. 

The  highest  good  known  to  man,  the  condition  of  the 
fullest  freedom  and  happiness,  is  a  condition  of  renuncia- 
tion and  love.  Reason  discloses  to  man  the  one  possible 
path  to  happiness,  and  feeling  directs  man  along  this  path. 

If  the  ideas  which  I  have  tried  to  communicate  to  you 


LETTER  TO   A   FRENCHMAN  425 

seem  obscure  to  you,  do  not  judge  them  too  severely.  I 
hope  that  some  day  you  will  read  them  in  a  clearer  and 
simpler  exposition. 

I  only  wanted  to  give  an  idea  of  my  views  of  life. 


THE  HOLIDAY  OF  ENLIGHT- 
ENMENT OF  THE  12TH 
OF  JANUARY 

1889 


THE  HOLIDAY  OF  ENLIGHT- 
ENMENT OF  THE  I2TH 
OF    JANUARY 


What  can  there  be  more  terrible  than  village  holidays  ? 
In  nothing  is  so  palpably  expressed  all  the  savagery  and 
monstrosity  of  the  national  life  as  in  the  village  holidays. 
During  work-days  the  people  live,  eating  wholesome  food 
moderately,  working  industriously,  communing  with  one 
another  amicably.  Thus  it  goes  for  a  week,  sometimes 
for  months,  and  suddenly  this  good  life  is  impaired  with- 
out any  visible  cause.  On  one  definite  day  all  stop  work- 
ing at  the  same  time,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  day  begin 
to  eat  unaccustomed  dainties,  and  to  drink  the  specially 
prepared  wine  and  vodka.  All  drink :  the  old  make  the 
young,  and  even  children,  indulge  in  drink.  All  congrat- 
ulate one  another,  kiss,  embrace,  shout,  sing  songs ;  now 
they  are  meek,  now  they  brag,  now  feel  offended ;  all  talk, 
and  no  one  listens ;  one  hears  cries,  quarrels,  and  often 
sees  fights.  Toward  evening  some  stumble,  fall,  and  go 
to  sleep  wherever  they  happen  to  be ;  others  are  taken 
away  by  those  who  are  still  in  their  senses,  and  others 
again  wallow  on  the  ground  and  writhe,  filHng  the  air 
with  the  stench  of  alcohol. 

On  the  next  day  all  these  men  awaken  sick  and,  com- 
ing to  a  little,  go  to  work  until  the  next  similar  day. 

429 


430    THE  HOLIDAY  OF  ENLIGHTENMENT 

What  is  it  ?  Why  is  it  so  ?  —  Why,  it  is  a  holiday,  a 
church  holiday.  In  one  place  it  is  Visitation,  in  another, 
Presentation,  in  a  third,  the  Virgin  of  Kaz^.  What 
is  meant  by  Visitation  and  Virgin  of  Kazdn,  nobody  knows. 
All  they  know  is  that  it  is  a  church  holiday,  and  that  it  is 
necessary  to  celebrate.  And  they  wait  for  this  celebration, 
and  after  their  hard  life  of  labour  are  glad  when  that  time 
comes. 

Yes,  this  is  one  of  the  most  striking  expressions  of  the 
savagery  of  the  working  people.  Wine  and  celebration 
are  for  them  temptations  which  they  cannot  withstand. 
When  a  holiday  comes,  each  one  of  them  is  prepared  to 
get  intoxicated  to  a  point  where  he  loses  his  human  sem- 
blance. 

Yes,  the  masses  are  savage.  But  here  comes  the  12th 
of  January,  and  in  the  newspapers  the  following  announce- 
ment is  printed :  "  A  social  dinner  of  the  alumni  of  the 
Imperial  Moscow  University  will  take  place  on  founder's 
day,  January  12th,  at  five  o'clock,  in  the  restaurant  of 
Grand  Hotel,  Moscow,  entrance  through  the  main  door. 
Tickets  for  the  dinner  at  six  roubles  may  be  had  .  .  ." 
(Follows  a  list  of  places  where  tickets  may  be  obtained.) 

But  this  is  not  the  only  dinner ;  there  will  be  dozens 
of  such  dinners,  —  in  Moscow,  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  in 
the  provinces.  The  12th  of  January  is  the  hohday  of  the 
oldest  Russian  university,  a  holiday  of  Russian  enlighten- 
ment. The  flower  of  enlightenment  is  celebrating  its 
holiday. 

One  would  think  that  men  who  stand  at  the  two 
extreme  ends  of  enlightenment,  the  wild  peasants  and 
the  most  cultured  of  Russian  men,  —  the  peasants  who 
celebrate  Presentation  or  the  Virgin  of  Kaz^n,  and  the 
cultured  people  who  celebrate  this  very  holiday  of  en- 
lightenment, —  ought  to  celebrate  their  holidays  in  quite 
different  manners.  But  it  turns  out  that  the  holiday  of 
the  most  cultured  of  people  in  no  way  differs  from  that 


THE  HOLIDAY  OF  EKLIGHTENMENT    43l 

of  the  most  savage  of  men,  except  in  external  forms. 
The  peasants  stick  to  Visitation  or  the  Virgin  of  Kazan 
without  the  slightest  reference  to  the  meaning  of  the 
holiday,  in  order  to  eat  and  drink ;  the  cultured  use  as  a 
pretext  the  day  of  St.  Tatiana,  in  order  to  stuff  themselves 
with  food  and  drink,  without  the  slightest  reference  to 
St.  Tatiana.  The  peasants  eat  gelatine  and  noodles ;  the 
cultured  eat  sea  crabs,  different  kinds  of  cheese,  soups, 
fillets,  etc.  The  peasants  drink  vodka  and  beer ;  the  cul- 
tured drink  liquors  of  every  description,  —  wines,  vodkas, 
liqueurs,  —  dry,  and  strong,  and  weak,  and  bitter  and 
sweet,  and  white  and  red,  —  and  champagne.  The  cost  of 
each  peasant's  treat  is  from  twenty  kopeks  to  one  rouble ; 
the  treat  of  the  cultured  costs  from  six  to  twenty 
roubles  for  each.  The  peasants  talk  of  their  love  for 
their  gossips,  and  sing  Russian  songs ;  the  cultured  speak 
of  loving  their  Alma  Mater,  and  with  faltering  tongues 
sing  senseless  Latin  songs.  The  peasants  fall  into  the 
mud,  and  the  cultured  —  upon  velvet  divans.  The  peas- 
ants are  taken  and  dragged  home  by  their  wives  and  sons, 
and  the  cultured  —  by  scornful,  sober  lackeys. 

Indeed,  it  is  terrible !  Terrible,  because  people  who,  in 
their  opinion,  stand  on  the  highest  level  of  human  educa- 
tion, are  not  able  in  any  other  way  to  celebrate  the  holi- 
day of  enlightenment  except  by  eating,  drinking,  smoking, 
and  shouting  senselessly  for  several  hours  in  succession. 
What  is  terrible  is  this,  that  old  men,  the  guides  of  the 
young,  contribute  to  poisoning  them  by  means  of  alcohol, 
—  which  poisoning,  like  quicksilver  poisoning,  never  dis- 
appears entirely  and  leaves  traces  for  the  rest  of  the  life. 
(Hundreds  and  hundreds  of  young  men 'have,  encouraged 
by  their  teachers,  for  the  first  time  become  beastly  drunk 
upon  this  hohday  of  enlightenment,  thus  ruining  and  cor- 
rupting themselves  for  the  rest  of  their  lives.)  But  most 
terrible  is  this,  that  the  men  who  are  doing  all  this  have 
to  such  an  extent  befogged  themselves  in  their  conceit 


432    THE  HOLIDAY  OF  ENLIGHTENMENT 

that  they  are  unable  to  distinguish  between  what  is  good 
and  what  bad,  between  what  is  moral  and  what  immoral. 
These  people  have  so  convinced  themselves  that  the  con- 
dition in  which  they  are  is  a  condition  of  culture  and 
enlightenment,  and  that  culture  and  euHghtenment  give 
them  the  right  to  pamper  to  all  their  weaknesses,  that 
they  are  unable  to  see  the  beam  in  their  own  eyes. 
These  people,  who  abandon  themselves  to  what  cannot 
be  called  otherwise  than  monstrous  drunkenness,  amidst 
this  debauch  admire  themselves  and  commiserate  the 
unenhghtened  masses. 

Every  mother  suffers,  —  I  shall  not  say  at  the  sight  of 
her  drunken  son,  but  even  at  the  thought  of  such  a  possi- 
bility ;  every  master  avoids  a  drunken  labourer ;  every 
uncorrupted  man  is  ashamed  of  himself,  if  he  has  been 
drunk.  All  know  that  drunkenness  is  bad.  But  here 
cultured,  enlightened  men  are  drunk,  and  they  are  fully 
convinced  that  there  is  not  only  nothing  shameful  or  bad 
in  it,  but  that  it  is  very  charming,  and  with  pleasure  and 
laughter  narrate  episodes  from  their  past  drunken  bouts. 
Things  have  come  to  such  a  pass  that  the  most  abomi- 
nable orgy,  in  which  young  men  are  made  drunk  by  their 
elders,  —  an  orgy  which  is  annually  repeated  in  the  name 
of  education  and  enlightenment,  —  does  not  offend  any- 
body, and  does  not  keep  people,  during  their  drunkenness 
and  after  it,  from  admiring  their  exalted  sentiments  and 
thoughts,  and  boldly  judging  and  valuing  the  morality  of 
other  people,  and  especially  of  the  coarse  and  ignorant 
masses. 

Every  peasant  regards  himself  as  guilty  when  he  is 
drunk,  and  begs  everybody  to  forgive  him  for  his  drunk- 
enness. In  spite  of  his  temporal  fall,  the  consciousness 
of  what  is  good  and  bad  is  ahve  in  him.  In  our  society 
this  consciousness  is  being  lost. 

Very  well,  you  are  in  the  habit  of  doing  so  and  cannot 
refrain  from  it,  —  all  right,  continue  doing  so,  if  you  can- 


THE   HOLIDAY   OF   ENLIGHTENMENT  433 

not  restrain  yourselves;  but  know  this  much,  that  on 
January  12th,  15th,  and  17th,  and  in  February,  and  in 
all  the  other  months,  this  is  disgraceful  and  low,  and, 
knowing  this,  abandon  yourselves  to  your  vicious  inclina- 
tions in  secret,  and  not  as  you  do  now,  —  triumphantly, 
entangling  and  corrupting  the  youth  and  your  so-called 
younger  brothers.  Do  not  confuse  the  youth  with  the 
doctrine  that  there  is  another,  a  civil  morality,  which 
does  not  consist  in  restraint,  and  another,  a  civil  immoral- 
ity, which  does  not  consist  in  lack  of  restraint.  All 
know,  and  you  know  it,  too,  that  before  all  other  civil 
virtues  one  needs  restraint  from  vices,  and  that  every 
lack  of  restraint  is  bad,  and  that  especially  the  lack  of 
restraint  in  drinking  is  '  exceedingly  dangerous,  because  it 
kills  conscience.  All  know  this,  and  so,  before  speaking 
of  any  exalted  sentiments  and  objects,  we  must  free  our- 
selves from  the  base  and  savage  vice  of  drunkenness,  and 
not  speak  of  exalted  subjects  v/hile  we  are  drunk.  Do 
not  deceive  yourselves  and  other  meu,  especially  do  not 
deceive  the  youths :  the  youths  feel  that,  taking  part  in 
the  savage  custom,  they  are  not  doing  the  right  thing, 
and  lose  something  very  precious  and  irretrievable. 

And  you  know  this,  —  you  know  that  there  is  nothing 
better  and  more  important  than  physical  and  spiritual 
purity,  which  is  lost  in  drunkenness ;  you  know  that  aU 
your  rhetoric,  with  your  eternal  Alma  Mater,  does  not 
move  you,  even  when  you  are  half-drunk,  and  that  you 
have  nothing  to  give  to  the  youths  in  place  of  that  inno- 
cence and  purity  which  they  lose  when  taking  part  in 
your  monstrous  orgies.  Do  not  debauch  them,  nor  con- 
fuse them,  but  know  that  as  it  was  with  Noah,  as  it  is 
with  every  peasant,  so  it  has  been  and  will  be  with  each 
person :  it  is  disgraceful  not  only  to  get  so  drunk  as  to 
yell,  swing  people,  get  up  on  the  tables,  and  do  all  kinds 
of  foolish  things,  but  also,  without  any  need,  in  com- 
memoration   of    the   holiday   of    enlightenment,  to   eat 


434    THE  HOLIDAY  OF  ENLIGHTENMENT 

savoury  food,  and  become  intoxicated  with  alcohoL  Do 
not  debauch  the  youths,  and  do  not  debauch  the  servants 
which  surround  you  by  your  own  example.  The  hun- 
dreds and  hundreds  of  people  who  serve  you,  who  bring 
to  you  wine  and  food,  and  take  you  to  your  homes,  are 
men,  live  men,  for  whom  there  exist,  as  for  all  of  us,  the 
most  important  questions  of  life,  as  to  what  is  good  and 
what  bad.  Whose  example  are  they  to  follow?  It  is 
fortunate  that  all  these  lackeys,  drivers,  porters,  these 
Eussian  villagers,  do  not  regard  you  as  what  you  think 
yourselves  to  be,  and  as  what  you  would  like  others  to 
regard  you,  —  as  representatives  of  enlightenment.  K 
this  were  the  case,  they,  looking  upon  you,  would  be 
disappointed  in  all  enlightenment,  and  would  despise  it ; 
but  even  now,  though  they  do  not  consider  you  to  be 
representatives  of  enhghtenment,  they  none  the  less  see 
in  you  learned  gentlemen,  who  know  everything,  and 
who,  therefore,  can  and  must  be  emulated.  And  what  is 
it  that  they,  the  unfortunate,  learn  from  you  ?  It  is  a 
good  question  to  put  to  yourselves. 

What  is  more  powerful,  that  enhghtenment  which  is 
disseminated  among  the  masses  by  the  giving  of  public 
lectures,  and  by  museums,  or  that  savagery  which  is 
supported  and  disseminated  among  the  masses  by  the 
spectacle  of  such  holidays  as  that  of  the  12th  of  Jan- 
uary, which  is  celebrated  by  the  most  enlightened  men 
of  Kussia?  I  think  that  if  all  lectures  and  museums 
came  to  a  stop,  and  if  at  the  same  time  all  such  celebra- 
tions and  dinners  were  given  up,  and  the  cooks,  chamber- 
maids, drivers,  and  janitors  communicated  to  one  another 
in  conversations  that  all  the  enlightened  people  whom 
they  serve  never  celebrate  the  holidays  by  gorging  them- 
selves with  food,  and  getting  drunk,  but  know  how  to 
make  merry  and  converse  without  wine,  the  enlighten- 
ment would  not  lose  anything  by  it.  It  is  time  to  under- 
stand that  the  enhghtenment  is  disseminated,  not  only 


THE  HOLIDAY  OF  ENLIGHTENMENT    435 

by  magic  lantern  and  other  pictures,  not  only  by  the  oral 
and  the  printed  word,  but  by  the  strikiug  example  of  the 
whole  life  of  people,  and  that  an  enhghtenment  which 
is  not  based  on  the  moral  life  has  never  been  and  never 
will  be  an  enlightenment,  but  only  an  eclipse  and  a 
corruption. 


POPULAR    LEGENDS 

1886 


POPULAR  LEGENDS 


HOW  THE  DEVIL  EEDEEMED  THE  CEUST  OF 
BKEAD 

A  POOK  peasant  went  out  to  plough,  without  having 
had  his  breakfast,  and  took  with  him  from  home  a  crust 
of  bread.  The  peasant  turned  over  the  plough  and  un- 
tied the  beam,  which  he  put  under  a  bush ;  here  he  also 
placed  his  crust  of  bread,  which  he  covered  with  his  caftan. 

The  horse  grew  tired,  and  the  peasant  was  hungry. 
The  peasant  stuck  fast  the  plough,  unhitched  the  horse 
and  let  it  go  to  graze,  and  himself  went  to  his  caftan,  to 
have  his  dinner.  He  raised  the  caftan,  but  the  crust  was 
not  there ;  he  searched  and  searched  for  it,  and  turned  his 
caftan  around  and  shook  it,  but  the  crust  was  gone.  The 
peasant  marvelled. 

"  This  is  remarkable, "  he  thought.  "  I  have  not  seen 
any  one,  and  yet  somebody  has  carried  off  the  crust  of 
bread." 

But  it  was  a  little  devil  who,  while  the  peasant  had 
been  ploughing,  had  carried  off  the  crust ;  he  sat  down 
behind  a  bush  to  hear  how  the  peasant  would  curse  and 
scold  him,  the  devil. 

The  peasant  looked  a  bit  dejected. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  shall  not  starve.  Evidently  the 
one  who  carried  it  off  needed  it.  May  he  eat  it  to  his 
health  ! " 

m 


440  POPULAR   LEGENDS 

And  the  peasant  went  to  the  well,  drank  some  water, 
rested  himself,  caught  the  horse,  hitched  it  up,  and  began 
once  more  to  plough. 

The  little  devil  felt  sad  because  he  had  not  led  the 
peasant  into  sin,  and  went  to  the  chief  devil  to  tell  him 
about  it. 

He  appeared  before  the  chief  devil  and  told  him  how 
he  had  carried  off  the  peasant's  crust,  and  how  the 
peasant,  instead  of  cursing,  had  told  him  to  eat  it  to 
his  health.     The  chief  devil  grew  angry. 

"  If  the  peasant  has  in  this  business  got  the  better  of 
you,"  he  said,  "  it  is  your  own  fault,  —  you  did  not  know 
any  better.  If  the  peasants,  and  the  women,  after  them, 
take  such  a  notion,  we  shall  have  a  hard  time  of  it. 
This  matter  cannot  be  left  in  such  a  shape.  Go,"  he  said, 
"  once  more  to  the  peasant,  and  earn  the  crust.  If  in 
three  years  you  do  not  get  the  better  of  the  peasant, 
I  will  bathe  you  in  holy  water." 

The  httle  devil  was  frightened.  He  ran  down  upon 
the  earth,  and  began  to  think  how  he  might  redeem  his 
guilt.  He  thought  and  thought,  and  finally  thought  it 
out.  He  turned  into  a  good  man,  and  hired  himself  out 
as  a  labourer  to  the  peasant.  He  taught  the  peasant  in  a 
dry  year  to  sow  in  a  swamp.  The  peasant  listened 
to  his  hired  hand  and  sowed  the  grain  in  the  swamp. 
The  other  peasants  had  all  their  grain  burned  up  by  the 
sun,  but  the  poor  peasant's  corn  grew  thick,  taU,  and 
with  fuU  ears.  The  peasant  had  enough  to  eat  until 
the  next  crop,  and  much  corn  was  left.  In  the  sum- 
mer the  hired  hand  taught  the  peasant  to  sow  on  the 
uplands.  It  turned  out  to  be  a  rainy  summer.  The  corn 
of  the  other  peasants  fell  down  and  rotted  and  made  no 
ears,  but  this  peasant's  corn  on  the  uplands  was  heavy 
with  ears.  The  peasant  had  now  even  more  com  left, 
and  he  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  it. 

The  hired  hand  taught  the  peasant  to  mash  the  grain 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  441 

and  brew  liquor.  The  peasant  brewed  some  liquor,  and 
began  to  drink  himself  and  to  give  it  to  others.  The 
little  devil  came  to  his  chief,  and  began  to  boast  that  he 
had  earned  the  crust.  The  chief  devil  went  to  look  for 
himself. 

He  came  to  the  peasant,  and  saw  that  the  peasant  had 
invited  some  rich  men,  to  treat  them  to  liquor.  The 
hostess  was  carrying  the  liquor  around  to  the  guests.  As 
she  walked  around,  her  foot  caught  in  the  table,  and  she 
spilled  a  glass.  The  peasant  grew  angry,  and  scolded 
his  wife. 

'*  Devil's  fool,"  he  said.  "  Is  this  slops  that  you,  with 
your  clumsy  hands,  spill  such  precious  liquor  on  the 
ground  ? " 

The  little  devil  nudged  his  chief. 

"  Watch  him ! "  he  said.  "  Now  he  will  regret  his 
crust." 

The  host  scolded  his  wife,  and  began  himself  to  carry 
the  liquor  around.  A  poor  peasant,  who  had  not  been 
invited,  came  back  from  his  work.  He  greeted  the  com- 
pany and  sat  down,  watching  the  people  drink  the  liquor ; 
as  he  was  tired  he  wanted  to  have  a  drink  himself.  He 
sat  and  sat,  and  swallowed  his  spittle,  —  but  the  host  did 
not  offer  him  any  ;  he  only  muttered : 

"Where  will  a  man  get  enough  liquor  for  the  whole 
lot  of  you  ? " 

This,  too,  pleased  the  chief  devil ;  but  the  little  devil 
boasted : 

"  Wait,  it  will  be  worse  than  that." 

The  rich  peasants  had  a  glass,  and  so  had  the  host. 
They  began  to  flatter  one  another  and  to  praise  one 
another,  and  to  speak  oily,  deceptive  words.  The  chief 
devil  listened  to  that,  too,  and  was  glad  of  it. 

"  If  this  drink  will  make  them  so  foxy,  and  they  will 
deceive  one  another,"  he  said,  "  they  wiU  be  in  our 
hands." 


442  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

"  Wait,"  said  the  little  devil,  "  and  see  what  is  coming ; 
let  them  drink  another  glass.  Now  they  wag  their  tails 
to  one  another,  like  foxes,  and  want  to  deceive  one 
another,  but  look,  they  will  soon  be  hke  fierce  wolves." 

The  peasants  had  another  glass,  and  their  words  became 
louder  and  coarser.  Instead  of  oily  speeches,  they  began 
to  curse  and  to  get  angry  with  one  another,  and  they 
fell  to,  and  mauled  one  another's  noses.  The  host,  too, 
took  a  hand  in  the  fight.     And  he  was  also  beaten. 

The  chief  devil  saw  this,  too,  and  was  glad. 

"  This,"  he  said,  "  is  nice." 

But  the  little  devil  said : 

"  Wait,  it  will  be  better  yet !  Let  them  have  a  third 
glass.  Now  they  are  like  mad  wolves,  but  let  them  have 
a  third  glass,  and  they  will  become  like  swine." 

The  peasants  had  a  third  glass.  They  went  completely 
to  pieces.  They  muttered  and  yelled,  they  did  not  know 
themselves  what,  and  paid  no  attention  to  one  another. 
They  began  to  scatter,  some  going  away  by  themselves, 
and  some  by  twos  and  threes ;  they  all  fell  down  and 
wallowed  in  the  street.  The  host  went  out  to  see  them 
off,  and  he  fell  with  his  nose  in  the  gutter,  and  he  became 
all  soiled  and  lay  there  like  a  pig,  grunting. 

This  pleased  the  chief  devil  even  more. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  you  have  invented  a  fine  drink,  and 
you  have  earned  the  crust.  Tell  me  how  you  made  this 
drink.  It  cannot  be  otherwise  than  that  you  have  first 
let  into  it  some  fox  blood,  —  and  this  made  the  peasant 
as  sly  as  a  fox.  And  then  you  let  in  some  wolf  blood,  — 
and  this  made  him  as  fierce  as  a  wolf.  And  finally  you 
poured  in  some  pig  blood,  and  this  made  him  a  pig." 

"  No,"  said  the  little  devil,  "  that  was  not  the  way  I 
did.  All  I  did  was  to  let  him  have  more  com  than  he 
needed.  That  beast  blood  has  always  lived  in  him,  but 
it  has  no  chance  so  long  as  he  gets  barely  enough 
Qom.     At  that  time  he  was  not  sorry  even  for  the  last 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  443 

crust,  but  when  he  began  to  have  a  surplus  from  his  corn, 
he  began  to  think  of  how  he  might  have  his  fun  from  it. 
And  I  taught  him  the  fun  of  drinking  liquor.  And  when 
he  began  to  brew  God's  gift  into  liquor  for  his  fun,  there 
arose  in  him  his  fox,  wolf,  and  pig  blood.  Let  him  now 
drink  liquor,  and  he  will  always  be  a  beast." 

The  chief  praised  the  little  devil,  forgave  him  for  the 
crust  of  bread,  and  made  him  a  captain. 


THE  EEPENTANT  SINNEK 

And  he  said  unto  Jesus,  Lord,  remember  me  when  thou 
comest  into  thy  kingdom. 

And  Jesus  said  unto  him.  Verily  I  say  unto  thee,  To-day 
Shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  paradise.     (Luke  xxiii.  42,  43.) 

There  was  a  man  who  had  lived  seventy  years  in 
the  world,  and  had  passed  all  his  life  in  sins.  And  he 
grew  sick,  and  did  not  repent.  And  when  his  time  came 
to  die,  he  wept  in  the  last  hour,  and  said : 

O  Lord  !  Forgive  me  as  Thou  f orgavest  the  thief  on  the 
cross. 

No  sooner  had  he  said  this  than  his  soul  left  him. 

And  the  soul  of  the  sinner  loved  God,  and  believed  in 
His  goodness,  and  came  to  the  gate  of  heaven.  And  the 
sinner  knocked  at  the  door,  and  begged  to  be  let  in.  And 
he  heard  a  voice  behind  the  door : 

"What  man  is  this  that  is  knocking  at  the  door  of 
heaven?  And  what  deeds  has  this  man  done  in  his 
life?" 

And  the  voice  of  the  arraigner  answered,  and  counted 
out  all  the  sinful  deeds  of  this  man,  and  did  not  mention 
a  single  good  deed. 

And  a  voice  answered  behind  the  door : 

"  Sinners  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Go 
hence." 

And  the  man  said : 

"  Lord,  I  hear  thy  voice,  but  do  not  see  thy  face,  and 
do  not  know  thy  name." 

444 


POPULAK  LEGENDS  445 

And  the  voice  answered : 

"  I  am  Peter  the  apostle." 

And  the  sinner  said  : 

"Have  pity  on  me,  Peter  the  apostle.  Remember 
human  weakness  and  God's  love.  Wert  thou  not  Christ's 
disciple,  and  heardst  thou  not  His  teaching  from  His  very 
lips,  and  sawest  thou  not  the  examples  of  His  life  ? 
Kemember,  when  He  was  dejected  and  troubled  in  spirit, 
and  commanded  thee  three  times  not  to  sleep,  but  to 
pray,  thou  didst  sleep,  because  thy  eyes  were  heavy,  and 
three  times  He  found  thee  sleeping.  Even  so  it  is  with 
me.  And  remember  again,  how  thou  didst  promise  Him 
not  to  renounce  Him  until  His  death,  and  how  thou  didst 
deny  Him  three  times,  when  they  took  Him  before  Cai- 
aphas.  Even  so  it  is  with  me.  And  remember  again, 
how  the  cock  crew,  and  thou  didst  go  out  and  weep  bit- 
terly. Even  so  it  is  with  me.  Thou  canst  not  keep  me 
out." 

And  the  voice  behind  the  door  of  heaven  grew  silent. 

And  the  sinner  stood  awhile,  and  began  once  more  to 
knock  at  the  door,  and  to  beg  to  be  admitted  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven. 

And  another  voice  was  heard  behind  the  door,  saying : 

"Who  is  this  man,  and  how  did  he  live  in  the 
world?" 

And  the  voice  of  the  arraigner  answered,  again  repeat- 
ing all  the  evil  deeds  of  the  sinner,  and  did  not  mention 
any  good  deeds  whatsoever. 

And  the  voice  behind  the  door  answered : 

"Go  hence,  for  such  sinners  cannot  live  with  us  in 
heaven." 

And  the  sinner  said : 

"  Lord,  I  hear  thy  voice,  but  do  not  see  thy  face,  and 
do  not  know  thy  name." 

And  the  voice  said  to  him : 

"  I  am  David,  the  king  and  prophet." 


446  POPULAR   LEGENDS 

But  the  sinner  did  not  despair.  He  did  not  go  away 
from  the  door  of  heaven,  but  said : 

"Have  mercy  on  me,  King  David,  and  remember 
human  weakness  and  God's  love.  God  loved  thee  and 
exalted  thee  above  men.  Thou  hadst  everything,  a  king- 
dom, and  glory,  and  riches,  and  wives,  and  children,  but 
when  thou  sawest  from  thy  roof  the  wife  of  a  poor  man, 
sin  entered  thee,  and  thou  tookest  the  wife  of  Uriah,  and 
slewest  him  with  the  sword  of  the  Ammonites.  Thou,  a 
rich  man,  tookest  the  last  sheep  away  from  a  poor  man, 
and  then  didst  destroy  him.  Even  so  did  I.  Then  re- 
member how  thou  repentedst,  saying,  *  I  confess  my  guilt, 
and  am  contrite  on  account  of  my  sin.*  Even  so  did  I. 
Thou  canst  not  keep  me  out." 

And  the  voice  behind  the  door  grew  silent. 

And  having  tarried  awhile,  the  sinner  began  to  knock 
once  more  and  to  beg  to  be  let  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.     And  a  third  voice  was  heard,  saying : 

"  Who  is  this  man  ?  And  how  did  he  live  in  the 
world?" 

And  the  voice  of  the  arraigner  answered,  for  the  third 
time  recounting  the  evil  deeds  of  the  man,  and  did  not 
mention  any  good  deeds. 

And  a  voice  behind  the  door  answered : 

"  Go  hence.  Sinners  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven." 

And  the  sinner  answered : 

"  I  hear  thy  voice,  but  do  not  see  thy  face,  and  do  not 
know  thy  name." 

And  the  voice  replied  : 

"  I  am  John  the  Divine,  the  beloved  disciple  of  Christ." 

And  the  sinner  rejoiced  and  said : 

"  Now  I  cannot  be  kept  out.  Peter  and  David  will  let 
me  in,  because  they  know  human  weakness  and  God's 
love ;  but  thou  wilt  let  me  in,  because  there  is  much  love 
in  thee.     Didst  thou,  John  the  Divine,  not  write  in  thy 


POPULAR   LEGENDS  447 

book  that  God  is  love,  and  that  he  who  does  not  love 
does  not  know  God?  Didst  thou  not  in  thy  old  age 
say  this  word  to  men :  '  Brethren,  love  one  another '  ? 
How,  then,  canst  thou  hate  me  and  drive  me  away  ? 
Either  thou  shalt  renounce  what  thou  didst  say,  or  thou 
shalt  love  me  and  let  me  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God." 
And  the  gates  of  heaven  opened,  and  John  embraced 
the  repentant  sinner,  and  let  him  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  God. 


THE  KERNEL  OF  THE  SIZE  OF   A   HEN'S  EGG 

One  day  some  children  found  in  a  ravine  something 
that  looked  like  a  hen's  egg  with  a  parting  in  the  middle 
and  resembling  a  kernel.  A  traveller  saw  this  thing  in 
the  children's  hands,  and  he  bought  it  from  them  for 
a  nickel,  and  took  it  to  town,  and  sold  it  to  the  king  as  a 
rarity. 

The  king  called  the  wise  men  and  commanded  them  to 
find  out  what  the  thing  was,  whether  an  egg  or  a  kernel. 
The  wise  men  thought  and  thought,  but  could  give  no 
answer.  The  thing  was  lying  on  the  window-sill,  and 
a  hen  flew  in  and  picked  at  it,  until  it  picked  a  hole  in 
it :  then  all  saw  that  it  was  a  kernel.  The  wise  men  went 
to  the  king  and  told  the  king  that  it  was  a  rye  kernel. 

The  king  was  surprised.  He  commanded  the  wise  men 
to  find  out  where  and  when  this  kernel  had  grown.  The 
wise  men  thought  and  thought,  and  hunted  through 
books,  and  could  not  find  out.  In  our  books  nothing  is 
written  about  it;  it  was  necessary  to  ask  the  peasants 
whether  one  of  the  old  men  had  not  heard  when  and 
where  such  a  kernel  had  been  sowed. 

The  king  commanded  that  a  very  old  peasant  be 
brought  into  his  presence.  They  found  such  a  man,  and 
brought  him  to  the  king.  There  arrived  a  green-skinned, 
toothless  old  man,  and  he  barely  could  walk  with  his  two 
crutches. 

The  king  showed  him  the  kernel;  but  the  old  man 
could  not  see  well.  He  half  looked  at  it,  and  half  felt  it 
with  his  hands. 

The  king  began  to  ask  him :  "  Do  you  not  know,  grand- 
448 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  449 

father,  where  such  a  kernel  was  raised  ?  Have  you  not 
raised  such  grain  ?  Or  did  you  not  some  day  during  your 
life  buy  such  a  seed  ? " 

The  old  man  was  deaf,  and  he  barely  heard  what  the 
king  was  saying,  and  barely  made  it  out.  Then  the  old 
man  began  to  speak : 

"  No,  I  have  not  raised  such  grain  in  my  field,  and 
have  never  reaped  such,  nor  have  I  bought  such.  When- 
ever I  bought  grain,  it  was  always  small.  But  I  must 
ask  my  father,"  he  said,  "  perhaps  he  has  heard  of  such 
grain." 

The  king  sent  for  the  old  man's  father,  and  commanded 
that  he  be  brought  into  his  presence.  They  found  the 
old  man's  father,  and  brought  him  to  the  king.  The  old 
man  came  on  one  crutch.  The  king  showed  him  the 
kernel.  The  old  man  could  see  with  his  eyes.  He  took 
a  good  look  at  it.     The  king  began  to  ask  him : 

"  Do  you  not  know,  old  man,  where  such  a  kernel  was 
grown  ?  Have  you  never  raised  such  in  your  own  field  ? 
Or  have  you  ever  bought  such  kernels  in  your  life  ? " 

Though  the  old  man  was  rather  hard  of  hearing,  he 
heard  better  than  his  son. 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  I  have  never  sowed  such  seed  in  my 
field,  and  have  never  reaped  such.  Nor  have  I  ever 
bought  such,  as  in  my  day  money  was  not  yet  in  exist- 
ence. We  all  lived  on  our  own  grain,  and  in  case  of  need 
shared  with  our  neighbours.  I  do  not  know  where  such 
a  kernel  was  grown.  Though  our  grain  used  to  be  larger 
and  more  millable  than  what  it  is  now,  I  never  saw  such. 
I  used  to  hear  my  father  say  that  in  his  day  the  grain 
was  larger  and  more  millable  than  ours.  You  will  have 
to  ask  him." 

The  king  sent  for  his  father.  They  found  the  man,  and 
he  was  brought  to  the  king.  The  old  man  walked  into 
the  king's  room  without  any  crutches.  He  walked 
lightly,  —  his  eyes  were  bright,  and  he  could  hear  well, 


450  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

and  talked  distinctly.  The  king  showed  the  kernel  to 
the  old  man.  The  old  man  looked  at  it,  and  turned 
it  around. 

"  It  is  now  long  since  I  last  saw  such  grain." 

The  old  man  bit  off  a  piece  of  the  kernel,  and  chewed  it. 

"  It  is  that,"  he  said. 

"  Tell  me,  grandfather,  when  and  where  such  a  kernel 
was  raised  ?  Did  you  never  sow  such  in  your  own  field  ? 
Or  did  you  ever  buy  it  of  people  in  your  lifetime  ? " 

And  the  old  man  said : 

"  In  my  day  such  grain  was  raised  everywhere.  With 
such  corn  I  fed  myself  and  other  people.  Such  grain 
I  sowed,  and  reaped,  and  threshed." 

And  the  king  asked : 

"  Tell  me,  grandfather,  did  you  buy  such  grain,  or  did 
you  sow  it  in  your  own  field  ? " 

The  old  man  smiled. 

"  In  my  day,"  he  said,  "  no  one  ever  thought  of  such 
a  sin  as  selling  or  buying  grain.  We  did  not  know  any- 
thing about  money.  Everybody  had  enough  corn  of  his 
own." 

And  the  king  asked  : 

"  Then  tell  me,  grandfather,  where  you  sowed  such 
corn,  and  where  your  field  was  ? " 

And  the  old  man  said : 

"My  field  was  God's  earth.  Wherever  I  ploughed, 
there  was  the  field.  The  land  was  free.  They  did  not 
call  it  one's  own  land.  People  called  nothing  but  their 
labour  their  own." 

"  Tell  me,  then,"  said  the  king,  "  two  more  things :  one 
is,  why  formerly  you  used  to  grow  such  grain,  and  now 
such  grain  does  not  grow.  The  other  is,  why  your  grand- 
son walked  with  two  crutches,  while  your  son  came  with 
one,  and  you  walk  entirely  at  your  ease :  your  eyes  are 
bright,  your  teeth  strong,  and  your  speech  clear  and  pleas- 
ing.    Grandfather,  how  did  these  two  things  happen  ?  ** 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  451 

And  the  old  man  said : 

"These  things  are  so  because  people  have  stopped 
living  by  their  own  labour,  and  are  having  an  eye  to 
other  people's  labour.  They  did  not  live  that  way  of  old ; 
of  old  they  lived  in  godly  fashion,  —  they  owned  what 
was  their  own,  and  did  not  profit  by  what  belonged  to 
others." 


HOW  MUCH  LAND  A  MAN  NEEDS 


The  elder  sister  came  with  her  younger  sister  to  the 
country.  The  elder  was  married  to  a  merchant  in 
the  city,  and  the  younger  to  a  peasant  in  the  vil- 
lage. The  sisters  were  drinking  tea,  and  talking.  The 
elder  hegan  to  boast,  —  to  praise  her  city  life,  —  telling 
how  comfortably  and  how  cleanly  they  lived  in  the  city, 
how  she  dressed  up  the  children,  what  savoury  food  and 
drink  she  had,  and  how  she  went  to  picnics  and  en- 
tertainments and  theatres. 

The  younger  sister  felt  offended,  and  began  to  speak 
disparagingly  of  the  merchant  life,  and  to  extol  the  life 
of  the  peasants. 

"I  would  not  exchange  my  life  for  yours,"  she  said. 
"  It  is  true,  we  Hve  uncleanly,  but  we  do  not  know  what 
fear  is.  You  live  more  cleanly,  but  you  either  make 
a  lot  of  money,  or  you  lose  it  all.  And  the  proverb 
says, '  Gain  loves  more.'  And  it  happens  that  to-day  you 
are  rich,  and  to-morrow  you  he  in  the  gutter.  But  our 
peasant  business  is  surer;  a  peasant's  life  is  slim,  but 
long  ;  we  are  not  rich,  but  have  enough  to  eat." 

The  elder  sister  said : 

"  Yes,  enough  to  eat,  but  with  pigs  and  calves !  You 
aren't  dressed  up,  and  have  no  manners.  No  matter  how 
much  your  man  may  work,  you  live  in  manure,  and  so 
you  will  die,  leaving  nothing  to  your  children." 

"  What  of  it  ? "  said  the  younger.  "  Such  is  our  busi- 
ness.    But  we  are  independent,  and  do  not  bow  to  any 

452 


POPULAR   LEGENDS  453 

one,  and  fear  no  one.  But  you  live  in  the  cities  among 
temptations:  to-day  it  is  all  right,  and  to-morrow  the 
unclean  one  will  turn  up  and  tempt  your  man  either 
with  cards,  or  with  wine,  or  with  some  damseL  And 
then  all  will  go  to  the  winds.  Do  not  such  things 
happen  ? " 

Pakhdm,  her  husband,  lying  on  the  oven,  heard  the 
women's  prattle. 

"  That  is  the  gospel  truth,"  he  said.  "  Our  kind  have 
been  turning  over  mother  earth  ever  since  our  childhood, 
and  so  foolishness  has  no  time  to  enter  into  our  heads. 
There  is  just  this  trouble,  —  we  have  not  enough  land ! 
If  I  had  as  much  land  as  I  want,  I  would  not  be  afraid  of 
the  devil  himself." 

The  women  drank  their  tea,  prattled  awhile  about 
dresses,  put  away  the  dishes  and  went  to  sleep. 

But  the  devil  had  been  sitting  behind  the  oven,  and 
listening  to  all  they  said.  He  was  glad  to  hear  the 
peasant  woman  make  her  husband  boast  that  if  he  had 
enough  land,  the  devil  would  not  take  him. 

"  Very  well,"  he  thought,  "  we  shall  have  a  tussle :  I 
wUl  give  you  lots  of  land.  I  will  overcome  you  by  means 
of  the  land." 

By  the  side  of  the  peasants  there  lived  a  small  pro- 
prietress. She  had  120  desyatmas  of  land.  So  far  she 
had  lived  in  peace  with  the  peasants,  and  had  offended  no 
one ;  but  an  ex-soldier  hired  out  to  her  as  a  steward,  and 
he  began  to  wear  the  peasants  out  with  fines..  No  matter 
how  careful  Pakhom  was,  either  his  horse  would  run  into 
the  oats,  or  a  cow  would  lose  her  way  in  the  garden,  or 
the  calves  would  stray  into  the  meadow,  —  for  everything 
he  had  to  pay  a  fine. 

Pakh6m  paid  the  fines,  and  scolded  and  beat  his  home 
people.     And  so  Pakh(5m  suffered  many  an  insult  from 


454  '  POPULAR   LEGENDS 

that  steward  during  the  summer,  and  was  glad  when  they 
began  to  stable  the  cattle,  —  though  he  was  sorry 
they  could  not  graze,  he  at  least  had  no  more  fear. 

In  the  winter  the  rumour  was  spread  that  the  propriet- 
ress was  going  to  sell  her  land,  and  that  an  innkeeper  on 
the  highway  was  trying  to  buy  it.  When  the  peasants 
heard  this,  they  groaned. 

"  Well,"  they  thought,  "  if  the  innkeeper  gets  the  land, 
he  will  wear  us  out  with  fines  even  worse  than  the  pro- 
prietress. We  cannot  live  without  this  land,  —  we  live 
all  around  it." 

The  peasants  went  to  the  proprietress  and  began  to  ask 
her  not  to  sell  it  to  the  innkeeper,  but  to  let  them  have  it. 
They  promised  they  would  pay  more  for  it.  The  lady 
consented.  The  peasants  were  thinking  of  buying  the 
land  in  common :  they  met  once  and  twice  to  discuss 
the  matter,  but  it  did  not  work.  The  evil  one  brought 
discord  among  them,  and  they  could  not  agree.  Finally 
the  peasants  agreed  to  buy  the  land  in  lots,  as  much  as 
each  could  afiford  to  buy.  The  lady  agreed  even  to  this. 
Pakhom  heard  that  a  neighbour  of  his  had  bought  twenty 
desyatinas,  and  that  she  had  given  him  time  for  half  the 
sum.  Pakhdm  felt  jealous:  "They  will  buy  up  all 
the  land,"  he  thought,  "  and  I  shall  be  left  with  nothing." 
He  began  to  take  counsel  with  his  wife. 

"People  are  buying  the  land,"  he  said,  "and  we,  too, 
ought  to  buy  a  few  desyatinas  of  it.  We  cannot  get 
along  now,  for  the  steward  has  ruined  me  with  the  fines." 

They  considered  how  they  might  buy  it.  They  had 
one  hundred  roubles  put  away,  and  they  sold  a  colt,  and 
half  of  the*  bees,  and  hired  out  their  son  as  a  labourer, 
and  borrowed  some  from  a  relative,  and  thus  got  together 
half  the  sum. 

Pakh(5m  took  the  money,  picked  out  fifteen  desyatinas 
with  a  little  grove,  and  went  to  the  lady  to  strike  a  bar- 
gain.     He  bought  the  fifteen  desyatinas,  clinched  the 


POPULAR   LEGENDS  *  455 

bsBTgain,  and  paid  an  earnest.  They  drove  to  the  city  and 
made  out  a  deed,  and  he  paid  half  the  sum  and  promised 
to  pay  the  rest  in  two  years. 

Thus  Pakhom  became  possessed  of  land.  He  borrowed 
seed  and  sowed  in  the  purchased  land,  and  it  produced  a 
good  crop.  In  one  year  he  paid  his  debt  to  the  lady  and 
to  his  relative.  And  so  Pakhom  became  a  proprietor :  he 
ploughed  and  sowed  in  his  own  land,  mowed  on  his 
own  land,  cut  poles  off  his  own  land,  and  pastured  his 
cattle  on  his  own  land.  Pakhom  took  great  delight  in 
ploughing  the  land  which  belonged  to  him  for  all  time, 
and  in  going  out  to  look  at  the  sproutiag  corn  and  at  the 
meadows.  It  seemed  to  him  as  though  the  grass  grew 
and  the  flowers  bloomed  quite  differently  on  them.  He 
had  crossed  this  land  many  a  time  before,  and  it  had  been 
just  land  to  him;  but  now  it  was  something  quite  dif- 
ferent. 

in. 

Thus  Pakhom  lived,  enjoying  himself.  All  would  have 
been  well,  but  the  peasants  began  to  trespass  on  Pakhom's 
fields  and  meadows.  He  begged  them  in  kiadness,  but 
they  paid  no  attention  to  him :  now  the  shepherds  let  the 
cows  get  into  his  meadows,  and  now  the  horses  would  leave 
their  right  pastures  and  run  into  his  corn.  Pakhom  drove 
them  off,  and  forgave  the  peasants,  and  did  not  sue  them ; 
finally  he  got  tired  of  it,  and  began  to  complain  in  the 
township  office.  He  knew  that  the  peasants  were  not 
doing  it  from  malice,  but  because  they  were  crowded,  but 
he  thought :  "  I  cannot  let  them  off,  for  they  will  ruin  all 
my  fields.     I  must  teach  them  a  lesson." 

He  taught  them  one  or  two  lessons  in  court,  and  this 
and  that  man  were  fined.  His  neighbours  began  to  have 
a  grudge  against  him,  and  occasionally  trespassed  on  his 
land  intentionally.  Some  one  stole  in  the  night  into 
his  grove  and  cut  down  ten  lindens  for  bast.     As  Pakhdm 


456  •  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

passed  by  the  grove,  he  noticed  something  white  there. 
He  drove  up  to  the  spot,  and  found  the  barked  liudens 
on  the  ground,  and  the  stumps  standing.  "  If  he  had  just 
cut  off  the  outer  bushes  and  left  the  main  tree  standing ! 
But  no,  the  rascal  has  cut  them  all  down."  Pakhdm 
grew  angry. 

"  Oh,"  he  thought,  "  if  I  could  just  find  out  who  did  it ; 
I  would  get  my  revenge  on  him."  He  thought  and 
thought  who  it  could  be ;  "  It  cannot  be  any  one  but 
S^mka." 

He  went  into  S^mka's  yard  to  look  for  them,  but  found 
there  nothing,  and  they  only  had  a  quarrel.  Pakh6m 
became  even  more  convinced  that  it  was  S^mka.  He 
entered  a  complaint.  They  were  summoned  to  court. 
They  tried  and  tried  the  case,  and  discharged  the  peasant, 
for  there  was  no  evidence.  Pakhdm  grew  angrier  than 
ever,  and  he  scolded  the  elder  and  the  judges. 

"  You  are  in  with  the  thieves,"  he  said.  "  If  you  your- 
selves lived  honestly,  you  would  not  let  the  thieves  go 
free." 

Pakhdm  quarrelled  with  the  judges  and  with  his  neigh- 
bours. They  began  to  threaten  to  set  fire  to  his  house. 
Pakh6m  lived  more  comfortably  on  his  land,  but  less 
comfortably  in  the   Commune. 

Just  then  they  began  to  spread  a. rumour  that  people 
were  going  to  new  places.     And  Pakhdm  thought : 

« I  have  no  reason  for  leaving  my  own  land ;  but  if 
some  of  our  men  would  go  there,  there  would  be  more 
room  here.  I  would  take  up  their  land  and  would  attach 
it  to  my  own.  I  should  Hve  more  comfortably  than  I  do 
now,  for  now  I  am  crowded  ! " 

Pakhdm  was  sitting  at  home  one  day,  when  a  transient 
peasant  stepped  in.  They  invited  the  peasant  to  stay 
overnight,  and  gave  him  to  eat,  and  talked  with  him, 
asking  him  whence  God  had  brought  him.  The  peasant 
said  that  he  had  come  from  farther  down,  from  beyond 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  457 

the  Volga,  where  he  had  been  working.  One  word  led  to 
another,  and  he  told  them  how  people  were  rushing 
to  settle  down  there.  He  told  them  that  men  from  his 
village  had  settled  there,  joining  the  Commune,  and  re- 
ceiving ten  desyatinas  to  each  soul.  The  land  was  such, 
he  said,  that  they  planted  rye  which  grew  to  be  higher 
than  a  horse,  and  so  thick  that  about  five  handfuls  made 
a  sheaf.  There  was  one  peasant,  he  said,  who  had  been 
poor,  and  had  come  with  nothing  but  his  hands,  and  now 
had  six  horses  and  two  cows. 

This  excited  Pakhom.     He  thought : 

"  Why  suffer  here  where  it  is  crowded,  if  it  is  possible 
to  live  better  ?  I  will  sell  the  land  and  the  farm ;  there 
I  will  start  a  new  farm  with  this  money,  and  will  provide 
myself  with  everything.  Here,  where  it  is  crowded,  it  is 
just  a  shame  to  stay.  But  I  must  first  find  it  all  out 
myself." 

He  got  ready  in  the  summer,  and  started  out.  Down 
to  Samara  he  went  on  a  steamer,  then  he  made  four  hun- 
dred versts  on  foot.  He  reached  the  place.  It  was  all 
as  he  had  been  told :  the  peasants  were  living  freely,  with 
ten  desyatinas  of  land  to  each  soul,  and  glad  to  receive 
people  into  their  Communes.  And  if  a  man  had  money, 
he  could,  in  addition  to  the  grant,  buy  in  perpetual  pos- 
session the  very  best  land  at  three  roubles  :  he  could  get 
all  the  land  he  wanted. 

Pakhom  found  out  everything  he  wanted.  He  returned 
home  in  the  fall,  and  began  to  sell  everything.  He  sold 
his  land  at  a  profit,  and  his  farm,  and  all  his  cattle ;  he 
gave  up  his  membership  in  the  Commune,  and  waited  for 
spring,  and  went  with  his  whole  family  to  the  new  places. 


IV. 

Pakh6m   arrived  with  his   family  in  the  new  places, 
where  he  joined  the  Commune  of  a  large  village.     He 


458  POPULAR   LEGENDS 

treated  the  old  men  and  got  all  the  papers  made  out. 
They  received  Pakhom,  and  apportioned  to  him  for  his 
five  souls  fifty  desyatinas  in  various  fields,  not  counting 
the  common  pasture. 

Pakhom  built  a  hut  and  bought  cattle.  He  had  now 
three  times  as  much  land  as  before,  and  it  was  fruitful 
land.  He  began  to  live  ten  times  as  well  as  before.  He 
had  all  the  fields  and  meadows  he  wanted.  He  could 
keep  as  many  cattle  as  he  pleased. 

At  first,  while  he  was  building  and  getting  things  into 
shape,  everything  looked  nice  to  Pakhom ;  but  when  he 
got  used  to  it,  he  began  once  more  to  feel  crowded.  The 
first  year  Pakhdm  sowed  wheat  on  the  grant  land,  and 
he  had  a  good  crop.  He  got  it  into  his  head  to  sow 
wheat,  but  the  grant  land  was  not  enough  for  him,  and 
what  there  was  of  it  was  no  good.  There  they  were 
sowing  wheat  on  prairie  land.  They  sowed  it  in  for  two 
years,  and  then  let  it  He  fallow,  to  gi'ow  up  again  with 
prairie  grass.  There  were  many  who  wanted  to  have 
such  land,  so  that  there  was  not  enough  land  to  go 
around.  And  there  were  quarrels  about  it:  those  who 
were  better  off  wanted  to  sow  on  it  themselves,  and  the 
poor  people  gave  it  to  the  merchants  for  the  taxes.  Pak- 
h6m  wanted  to  sow  as  much  as  possible.  He  went  the 
next  year  to  a  merchant,  and  bought  land  for  the  period 
of  a  year.  He  went  the  next  year  to  the  merchant, 
and  again  bought  land  for  a  year.  He  sowed  more 
wheat,  and  he  had  a  good  crop,  only  it  was  far  away 
from  the  village,  —  he  had  to  haul  the  wheat  fifteen 
versts.  He  saw  the  merchant  peasants  of  the  district 
living  in  their  estates,  and  getting  rich. 

"  It  would  be  nice,"  thought  Pakhdm,  "  if  I  myself 
bought  land  in  perpetuity,  and  established  an  estate  for 
myself.     Everything  would  be  adjoining  me." 

And  Pakhdm  began  to  think  how  he  might  buy  land 
in  perpetuity. 


POPULAR   LEGEIiq-DS  459 

Thus  Pakhom  lived  for  three  years.  He  rented  land, 
and  sowed  wheat.  The  years  were  good,  and  the  wheat 
grew  well,  and  he  had  some  money  laid  by.  He  could 
live  and  live,  but  it  appeared  tiresome  to  Pakhom  to  buy 
new  land  from  people  each  year,  and  to  have  to  fuss 
about  the  land :  where  there  was  any  good  land  the 
peasants  would  swoop  down  on  it  and  take  it  all  up, 
and  unless  he  was  quick  in  getting  it,  he  would  not  have 
any  land  to  sow  in.  And  in  the  third  year  he  rented 
with  a  merchant  a  pasture  on  shares,  and  they  ploughed 
it  all  up,  but  the  peasants  from  whom  they  rented  it 
went  to  court  about  it,  and  all  their  work  was  lost.  "  If 
it  were  all  my  land,"  he  thought,  "  I  should  not  bow  to 
any  one,  and  there  would  be  no  worry." 

Pakhom  began  to  inquire  where  he  could  buy  land  in 
perpetuity,  and  he  found  a  peasant  who  would  sell.  The 
peasant  had  bought  five  hundred  desyatinas,  but  he  had 
lost  money,  and  now  wanted  to  sell  the  land  cheap. 
Pakhom  began  to  bargain  with  him.  He  bargained  and 
bargained,  and  finally  got  it  for  fifteen  hundred  roubles, 
half  of  it  on  time.  They  had  almost  settled  the  matter, 
when  a  transient  merchant  stopped  at  his  farm  to  get 
something  to  eat.  They  drank  tea,  and  started  to  talk. 
The  merchant  told  him  that  he  had  come  from  the  far- 
off  country  of  the  Bashkirs.  There,  he  said,  he  had 
bought  about  five  thousand  desyatinas  from  the  Bashkirs, 
and  for  this  he  had  to  pay  only  one  thousand  roubles. 
Pakhom  began  to  question  him.  The  merchant  told  him 
all  about  it. 

"  All  I  had  to  do,"  he  said,  "  was  to  gain  over  the  old 
men.  I  gave  in  presents  about  one  hundred  roubles* 
worth  of  cloaks  and  rugs,  and  a  caddy  of  tea,  and  filled 
up  with  wine  those  who  would  drink.  I  gave  twenty 
kopeks  per  desyatina."  He  showed  the  deed.  "The 
land,"  he  said,  "  lies  along  a  river,  and  it  is  all  a  prairie." 

Pakhdm  began  to  question  him  all  about  it. 


460  POPULAR   LEGENDS 

"  You  can't  walk  around  the  land  in  a  year,"  he  said, 
"and  it  all  belongs  to  the  Bashkirs.  And  the  people 
•have  no  sense,  just  like  sheep.  You  can  get  it  almost 
for  nothing." 

"Well,"  thought  Pakhdm,  "why  do  I  want  to  buy 
five  hundred  desyatinas  for  one  thousand  roubles,  and 
take  a  debt  on  my  neck  ?  There  I  can  get  rich  for  one 
thousand  roubles." 


Pakhdm  inquired  how  to  get  there,  and  as  soon  as  he 
saw  the  merchant  off  he  got  ready  to  go.  He  left  his 
house  to  his  wife,  and  took  his  hired  help,  and  went  with 
him.  They  travelled  to  the  city,  bought  a  caddy  of  tea, 
presents,  and  wine,  just  as  the  merchant  had  said.  They 
travelled  and  travelled,  until  they  had  five  hundred  versts 
behind  them.  On  the  seventh  day  they  came  to  the 
Bashkir  roaming-grounds.  Everything  was  as  the  mer- 
chant had  said.  They  all  live  in  the  steppe,  above  the 
river,  in  felt  tents.  They  themselves  neither  plough 
nor  eat  bread,  but  the  cattle  and  horses  run  in  droves  in 
the  steppe.  Back  of  the  tents  the  colts  are  tied,  and 
twice  a  day  they  drive  the  mares  there,  and  milk  them, 
and  make  kumys  of  the  milk.  The  women  churn  the 
kumys  and  make  cheese,  and  all  the  men  do  is  to  drink 
kumys  and  tea,  eat  mutton,  and  play  a  pipe.  They  look 
sleek  and  merry,  and  they  celebrate  the  whole  summer. 
The  people  are  all  ignorant,  and  know  no  Russian,  but 
they  are  kind. 

As  soon  as  they  saw  Pakh6m,  they  came  out  of  their 
tents,  and  surrounded  the  guest.  There  was  an  inter- 
preter there.  Pakhdm  told  him  that  he  had  come  to  see 
about  some  land.  The  Bashkirs  were  happy,  and  they 
took  Pakhdm  by  his  arms,  and  led  him  to  a  nice  tent, 
seated  him  on  rugs,  placed  down  pillows  under  him,  sat 
around  him  in  a  circle,  and  began  to  treat  him  to  tea  and 


POPULAK  LEGENDS  461 

to  kumys.  They  killed  a  sheep,  and  filled  him  with  mut- 
ton. Pakhdm  fetched  the  presents  from  the  tarantas,  and 
began  to  distribute  them  to  the  Bashkirs.  Pakhom  gave 
the  presents  to  the  Bashkirs,  and  distributed  the  tea  among 
them.  The  Bashkirs  were  happy.  They  prattled  among 
themselves,  and  then  told  the  interpreter  to  translate. 

«  They  command  me  to  tell  you,"  said  the  interpreter, 
"  that  they  like  you,  and  that  it  is  our  custom  to  give 
our  guests  every  pleasure,  and  to  return  presents.  You 
have  given  us  presents ;  now  tell  us  what  you  like  us  to 
give  you  of  our  things." 

"  What  I  like,"  said  Pakhdm,  "  most  of  all,  here,  is 
your  land.  Where  I  live,"  he  said,  "  the  land  is  crowded 
and  worn  out  by  ploughing,  but  you  have  much  and  good 
land.     I  have  never  seen  such  before." 

The  interpreter  translated.  The  Bashkirs  talked  among 
themselves.  Pakhom  did  not  understand  what  they  were 
saying,  but  he  saw  that  they  were  merry,  shouting  and 
laughing.  Then  they  grew  silent,  and  looked  at  Pakhdm, 
but  the  interpreter  said : 

"They  command  me  to  tell  you  that  for  the  good 
which  you  have  done  them  they  are  glad  to  give  you  as 
much  land  as  you  want.  You  have  just  to  point  to  it, 
and  it  is  yours." 

Then  they  talked  again,  and  disputed  among  them- 
selves. Pakhdm  asked  what  they  were  disputing,  and 
the  interpreter  said : 

"Some  say  that  they  must  ask  the  elder  about  the 
land,  and  that  they  cannot  do  it  without  him.  But 
others  say  that  they  can  do  it  without  him." 


VI. 

The  Bashkirs  went  on  disputing,  when  suddenly  a 
man  in  a  fox  cap  came  in.  They  all  grew  silent  and  got 
up,  and  the  interpreter  said : 


462  POPULAR   LEGENDS 

«  This  is  their  elder." 

Pakhdm  immediately  took  out  the  best  cloak  and  five 
pounds  of  tea,  and  took  this  to  the  elder.  The  elder 
received  the  presents,  and  sat  down  in  the  place  of 
honour.  The  Bashkirs  began  at  once  to  talk  to  him. 
The  elder  listened  and  Hstened  to  them,  and  shook  his 
head  to  them,  for  them  to  keep  quiet.  Then  he  began  to 
speak  in  Russian  to  Pakhdm. 

"  Well,  you  may  have  it,"  he  said.  "Take  it  wherever 
you  like.     There  is  a  great  deal  of  land  here." 

"  How  can  I  take  as  much  as  I  want  ? "  thought 
Pakhdm.  "  I  must  get  some  statement,  or  else  they  will 
say  that  it  is  mine,  and  then  they  will  take  it  away  from 
me." 

"Thank  you,"  he  said,  "for  your  kind  words.  You 
have  a  great  deal  of  land,  but  I  want  only  a  small  part 
of  it.  How  shall  I  know  which  is  mine?  I  must 
measure  it  off,  and  get  a  statement  of  some  kind.  For 
God  disposes  of  life  and  of  death.  You  good  people  give 
it  to  me,  but  your  children  may  come  and  take  it  away." 

"  You  are  right,"  said  the  elder,  "  we  shall  give  you  a 
statement." 

Then  Pakhdm  said : 

"  I  have  heard  that  a  merchant  came  to  see  you.  You 
made  him  a  present  of  some  land  and  gave  him  a  deed : 
I  ought  to  get  one  myself." 

The  elder  understood  it  all. 

"That  is  all  possible,"  he  said.  "We  have  a  scribe, 
and  we  will  go  to  town,  and  affix  our  seals." 

"  And  what  will  the  price  be  ? "  asked  Pakhdm. 

"  We  have  but  one  price :  one  thousand  roubles  a 
day." 

Pakhdm  did  not  understand  him. 

"  What  kind  of  a  measure  is  a  day  ?  How  many 
desyatlnas  are  there  in  it?" 

"  We  cannot  figure  it  out,"  he  said.     "  We  sell  by  the 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  463 

day ;  as  much  as  you  can  walk  over  in  one  day  is  yours, 
and  a  day's  price  is  one  thousand  roubles." 

Pakhom  was  surprised. 

"  But  in  one  day  you  can  walk  around  a  great  deal  of 
land,"  he  said. 

The  elder  laughed. 

"It  is  all  yours,"  he  said.  "But  there  is  just  one 
condition :  if  you  do  not  come  back  in  one  day  to  the 
place  from  which  you  start,  your  money  is  lost." 

"  But  how  'can  I  mark  off  what  I  walk  over  ? "  asked 
Pakhom. 

"We  shall  stand  on  the  spot  which  you  will  choose, 
and  you  will  start  on  the  circuit :  take  with  you  a  spade, 
and  wherever  necessary,  in  the  corners,  dig  a  hole,  and 
pile  up  some  turf,  and  we  shall  later  make  a  furrow  with 
a  plough  from  hole  to  hole.  Make  any  circuit  you  please, 
but  by  sundown  you  must  come  back  to  the  spot  from 
which  you  have  started.  Whatever  ground  you  cover  is 
yours." 

Pakhdm  was  happy.  They  decided  to  go  out  early  in 
the  morning.  They  talked  awhile,  drank  more  kumys, 
ate  some  mutton,  and  had  tea  again ;  it  was  getting  dark. 
They  bedded  Pakhom  on  feather  beds,  and  then  the  Bash- 
kirs went  away.  They  promised  to  meet  him  at  daybreak, 
and  to  go  out  to  the  spot  before  the  sun  was  up. 


vn. 

Pakhom  lay  down  on  the  feather  bed  and  could  not 
sleep :  he  was  thinking  all  the  time  of  the  land. 

"  I  will  slice  off  a  mighty  tract,"  he  thought.  "  I  can 
walk  about  fifty  versts  in  one  day.  The  day  is  long  now ; 
in  fifty  versts  there  will  be  a  lot  of  land.  The  worst  I  will 
sell,  or  let  to  the  peasants,  and  the  best  I  will  keep,  and 
will  settle  on  myself.  I  will  buy  me  two  ox-teams 
and  will  hire  two  more  hands;  I  will  plough  up  about 


464  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

fifty  desyatinas,  and  on  the  rest  I  will  let  the  cattle 
roam." 

Pakhdm  could  not  fall  asleep  all  night.  It  was  only 
before  daybreak  that  he  forgot  himseK.  The  moment  he 
became  unconscious,  he  had  a  dream.  He  saw  himseK 
lying  in  the  same  tent,  and  some  one  on  the  outside  was 
roaring  with  laughter.  He  wanted  to  see  who  was  laugh- 
ing there,  and  he  thought  he  went  out  of  the  tent,  and 
saw  the  same  Bashkir  sitting  before  the  tent,  holding  his 
belly  with  both  his  hands  and  swaying  in  .his  laughter. 
He  went  up  to  him  and  said :  "  What  are  you  laughing 
about  ? "  And  it  seemed  to  him  that  it  was  not  the 
Bashkir,  but  the  merchant  who  had  stopped  at  his  house 
aud  had  told  him  all  about  the  land.  And  he  asked  the 
merchant:  "How  long  have  you  been  here?"  But  it 
was  no  longer  the  merchant ;  it  was  the  peasant  that  long 
ago  had  come  from  the  lower  country.  And  Pakhdm  saw 
that  it  was  not  the  peasant,  but  the  devil  himself  with 
horns  and  hoofs  :  he  was  sitting,  and  laughing,  and  before 
him  lay  a  man,  in  his  bare  feet,  and  in  a  shirt  and  trou- 
sers. And  Pakhom  took  a  closer  look  to  see  who  the 
man  was.  And  he  saw  that  it  was  a  dead  man,  —  him- 
self. Pakh(5m  was  frightened,  and  awoke.  "  A  man  will 
dream  anything,"  he  said,  as  he  awoke.  He  looked  around 
through  the  open  door,  and  day  was  breaking,  and  it  was 
getting  Hght. 

"  I  must  wake  the  people  now,"  he  thought,  "  it  is  time 
to  start." 

Pakhdm  got  up,  woke  his  labourer  in  the  tarantds,  ordered 
him  to  hitch  up,  and  went  himself  to  wake  the  Bashkirs. 

"  It  is  time  to  go  out  to  lay  off  the  land,"  he  said. 

The  Bashkirs  got  up,  and  gathered  together,  and  the 
elder  arrived.  The  Bashkirs  began  agaiQ  to  drink  kumys 
and  wanted  to  treat  Pakhdm  to  tea,  but  he  would  not 
wait  so  long. 

"  If  we  are  to  go,  let  us  go,"  he  said.     « It  is  time." 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  465 


VIIL 

The  Bashkirs  came  together,  and  some  went  on  horse- 
back, and  others  in  tarantases,  and  they  started.  Pakhdm 
went  with  his  labourer  in  his  little  tarantas,  taking  a  spade 
with  them.  They  arrived  in  the  steppe  just  as  it  was 
dawning.  They  rode  up  a  mound,  called  "  shikhan  "  in 
the  Bashkir  language.  They  got  out  of  their  tarantases 
and  dismounted  from  their  horses,  and  gathered  in  a 
circle.  The  elder  walked  over  to  Pakhom,  and  pointed 
with  his  hand. 

"  Everything  you  see,"  he  said,  "  is  ours.  Choose  what- 
ever you  please." 

Pakhom's  eyes  were  burning:  it  was  all  prairie  land, 
as  smooth  as  the  palm  of  the  hand  and  as  black  as  the 
poppy,  and  wherever  there  was  a  hollow  there  were 
different  kinds  of  grass,  breast-high. 

The  elder  took  off  his  fox  cap  and  put  it  on  the 
ground. 

"  This  will  be  the  goal,"  he  said.  "  From  here  you  will 
start,  and  here  you  will  come  back.  Whatever  you  circle 
about  will  be  yours." 

Pakhom  took  out  the  money,  put  it  on  the  cap,  and 
pulled  off  his  caftan,  and  so  was  left  in  his  sleeveless 
coat.  He  pulled  his  girdle  tighter  over  his  belly,  drew 
up  his  trousers,  put  a  wallet  with  bread  in  his  bosom,  tied 
a  can  of  water  to  his  belt,  pulled  up  his  boot-legs,  took  the 
spade  from  his  labourer,  and  got  ready  to  go.  He  thought 
for  awhile  in  what  direction  to  start,  —  it  was  nice  every- 
where. He  thought :  "  It  makes  no  difference.  I  will  go 
eastward."  He  turned  his  face  toward  the  sun,  stretched 
himself,  and  waited  for  the  sun  to  peep  out.  He  thought : 
"  I  must  not  waste  time  in  vain.  It  is  easier  to  walk  while 
it  is  fresh."  The  moment  the  sun  just  ghstened  over  the 
edge,  Pakh6m  threw  the  spade  over  his  shoulder  and  started 
over  the  steppe. 


466  POPULAR   LEGENDS 

Pakhdm  walked  neither  leisurely,  nor  fast.  He  walked 
about  a  verst ;  he  stopped,  dug  a  hole,  and  put  some  turf 
in  a  heap,  so  as  to  make  the  sign  clearer.  He  went  on. 
He  was  getting  limbered  up,  and  he  increased  his  step. 
After  walking  a  distance,  he  dug  another  hole. 

Pakhom  looked  around.  The  shikhan  could  easily  be 
seen  in  the  sunshine,  and  the  people  were  standing  there, 
and  the  tires  on  the  wheels  of  the  tarantdses  glistened. 
Pakhom  guessed  that  he  had  walked  five  versts.  He  was 
getting  warm,  so  he  took  off  his  coat,  threw  it  over  his 
shoulder,  and  marched  on.  It  grew  warm.  He  looked 
at  the  sun.     It  was  time  to  think  of  breakfast. 

"  I  have  walked  the  distance  of  a  ploughing,"  thought 
Pakhdm,  "and  there  are  four  pf  them  in  a  day,  —  it  is 
too  early  yet  to  turn.     I  must  just  take  off  my  boots." 

He  sat  down,  pulled  off  his  boots,  stuck  them  in  his 
girdle,  and  started  off  again.  It  was  easy  to  walk  now. 
He  thought :  "  I  wiU  walk  another  five  versts,  then  I  will 
turn  to  the  left.  The  land  is  so  fine,  it  is  a  pity  to  leave 
it  out."  The  farther  he  went,  the  nicer  it  was.  He  went 
straight  ahead.  He  turned  back  to  look :  the  shikhan 
was  barely  visible,  and  the  people  looked  like  black  ants, 
and  something  could  barely  be  seen  glistening  in  the 
sun. 

« Well,"  thought  Pakhdm,  "  I  have  walked  enough  in 
this  direction.  I  must  turn  in.  I  am  hot,  too :  I  must 
take  a  drink." 

He  stopped,  dug  a  large  hole,  piled  up  the  turf,  untied 
the  can,  took  a  drink,  and  bent  sharply  to  the  left.  He 
walked  on  and  on,  and  the  grass  was  high,  and  he  felt 
hot. 

Pakh(5m  was  beginning  to  grow  tired ;  he  looked  at  the 
sun,  and  saw  that  it  was  exactly  noon. 

"  Well,"  he  thought,  "  I  must  take  a  rest." 

Pakh6m  stopped  and  sat  down.  He  ate  a  piece  of 
bread  and  drank  some  water,  but  did  not  lie  down :  he 


POPULAK  LEGENDS  467 

was  afraid  he  might  fall  asleep.  After  sitting  awhile 
he  started  off  again.  At  first  the  walking  was  easy.  The 
lunch  gave  him  new  strength.  It  grew  very  hot,  and 
he  felt  sleepy;  but  he  kept  walking,  thinking  that  he 
would  have  to  suffer  but  a  httle  while,  and  would  have  to 
live  long. 

He  walked  quite  a  distance  in  this  direction.  He  was 
on  the  point  of  turning,  when,  behold,  he  came  upon  a 
wet  hollow;  it  was  a  pity  to  lose  this.  He  thought 
that  flax  would  do  well  there.  He  walked  on  straight. 
He  took  in  the  hollow,  then  dug  a  hole  beyond  it,  and 
turned  around  the  second  corner.  Pakhom  looked  back 
at  the  shikhan ;  it  was  mist-covered  from  the  heat,  quiv- 
ering in  the  air,  and  through  the  haze  he  could  barely  see 
the  people. 

"Well,"  thought  Pakhdm,  "I  have  taken  two  long 
sides.     I  must  make  this  one  shorter." 

He  started  on  his  third  side,  and  began  to  increase  his 
speed.  He  looked  at  the  sun,  and  it  was  already  near 
the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  but  he  had  made  only  two 
versts  on  the  third  side.  To  the  goal  it  was  still  fifteen 
versts. 

"  Yes,"  he  thought,  "  though  it  is  going  to  be  a  crooked 
estate,  I  must  walk  in  a  straight  line.  I  must  not  take  in 
too  much,  —  as  it  is  I  have  a  great  deal." 

Pakhom  quickly  dug  a  hole,  and  turned  straight  toward 
the  shikhan. 

Pakh6m  walked  straight  toward  the  shikhan,  and  it 
was  getting  hard.  He  was  thirsty,  and  he  had  cut  and 
hurt  his  feet,  and  he  began  to  totter.  He  wanted  to  rest, 
but  he  could  not,  for  he  would  not  get  back  by  sundown. 
The  sun  did  not  wait,  and  kept  going  down  and  down. 

"  Oh,"  he  said,  "  I  hope  I  have  not  made  a  mistake  and 
taken  in  too  much.    What  if  I  do  not  get  back  in  time  ? " 


468  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

He  looked  ahead  of  Mm  at  the  shikhan  and  up  at  the 
sun :  it  was  still  far  to  the  shikhan,  and  the  sun  was  not 
far  from  the  horizon. 

Pakhdm  walked,  and  it  was  hard  for  him,  but  he  kept 
increasing  his  gait.  He  walked  and  walked,  and  it  was 
far  still,  so  he  began  to  trot.  He  threw  away  his  coat, 
his  boots,  and  the  can  ;  he  threw  away  his  cap,  but  held 
on  to  the  spade,  to  lean  on  it. 

"  Oh,"  he  thought,  "  I  have  made  a  mistake  and  have 
ruined  the  whole  affair.  I  shall  not  get  back  before  sun- 
down." 

And  terror  took  his  breath  away.  He  ran,  and  his 
shirt  and  trousers  stuck  to  his  body  from  perspiration,  and 
his  mouth  was  dry.  In  his  breast  it  was  as  though  bel- 
lows were  being  pumped,  and  in  his  heart  there  was  a 
hammering,  and  his  legs  gave  way  under  him.  Pakhom 
felt  badly:  he  was  afraid  he  might  die  from  too  much 
straining. 

He  was  afraid  he  might  die,  but  he  did  not  dare  to  stop. 

"  I  have  run  so  much,"  he  thought,  "  so  how  can  I  stop 
now  ?     They  will  only  call  me  a  fool." 

He  ran  and  ran,  and  was  getting  near,  and  could  hear 
the  Bashkirs  screaming  and  shouting  to  him,  but  their 
noise  made  him  still  more  excited.  He  ran  with  all  his 
might,  and  the  sun  was  getting  near  the  edge :  it  was  lost 
in  the  mist,  and  looked  as  red  as  blood.  It  was  just 
beginning  to  go  down.  The  sun  was  nearly  gone,  but  it 
was  no  longer  far  to  the  goal.  He  saw  the  people  wav- 
ing their  hands  at  him  from  the  shikhan,  and  encouraging 
him.  He  saw  the  fox  cap  on  the  ground  and  the  money 
on  top  of  it ;  and  he  saw  the  elder  sitting  on  the  ground, 
holding  his  hands  over  his  belly.  And  Pakhdm  recalled 
his  dream. 

"  There  is  a  lot  of  land,"  he  thought,  "  but  will  God 
grant  me  to  live  on  it  ?  Oh,  I  have  ruined  myself,"  he 
thought.     "  I  shall  not  reach  the  spot" 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  469 

Pakh6m  looked  at  the  sun,  and  it  was  down  to  the 
ground,  —  a  part  of  it  was  down,  and  only  an  arch  was 
standing  out  from  the  horizon.  Pakhdm  made  a  last 
effort  and  bent  forward  with  his  whole  body :  his  legs 
hardly  moved  fast  enough  to  keep  him  from  falling.  He 
ran  up  to  the  shikhan,  when  suddenly  it  grew  dark. 
He  looked  around,  and  the  sun  was  down.     He  groaned. 

"  My  labour  is  lost,"  he  thought. 

He  wanted  to  stop,  but  he  heard  the  Bashkirs  shouting 
to  him,  and  then  he  recalled  that  here  below  it  seemed  to 
him  that  the  sun  was  down,  but  that  on  the  shikhan 
it  was  not  yet  down.  Pakhom  made  a  last  effort,  and 
ran  up  the  shikhan.  On  the  shikhan  it  was  still  light. 
He  ran  up,  and  saw  the  cap.  In  front  of  the  cap  sat  the 
elder,  laughing  and  holding  his  hands  on  his  belly. 
Pakhom  recalled  the  dream.  He  groaned,  and  his  legs 
gave  way,  and  he  fell  forward,  and  his  hands  touched  the 
cap. 

"  You  are  a  fine  fellow  ! "  cried  the  elder.  "  You  have 
come  into  a  lot  of  land." 

Pakhom's  labourer  ran  up,  wishing  to  raise  him,  but 
blood  was  flowing  from  his  mouth,  and  he  was  dead. 

The  Bashkirs  clicked  their  tongues,  pitying  him. 

The  labourer  picked  up  the  spade,  and  dug  a  grave  for 
Pakhom,  as  much  as  he  measured  from  his  feet  to  his 
head,  —  three  arshins,  —  and  buried  him  in  it. 


THE   GODSON 


Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye, 
and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  :  but  I  say  unto  you,  That  ye  resist 
not  evil  (Matt.  v.  38,  39). 

Vengeance  is  mine  ;  I  will  repay  (Bom.  xii.  19). 


A  SON  was  born  to  a  poor  peasant.  The  peasant  was 
delighted,  and  he  went  to  his  neighbour  to  call  a  god- 
father. The  neighbour  refused,  —  what  pleasure  is  there 
in  being  godfather  to  a  poor  peasant's  child  ?  The  poor 
peasant  went  to  another  neighbour,  and  he,  too,  refused. 

He  went  through  the  whole  village,  but  no  one  would 
be  godfather.  The  peasant  went  to  another  village.  On 
his  way  he  met  a  man  and  the  man  stopped  him. 

"  Good  morning,"  he  said,  "  whither  does  God  cany  you, 
man  ? " 

"  The  Lord  has  given  me  a  child,"  said  the  peasant,  "  in 
childhood  a  care,  in  old  age  a  consolation,  and  after  death 
for  my  soul's  remembrance  ;  but  as  I  am  poor,  no  one  in 
our  village  wants  to  be  godfather.  I  am  on  my  way  to 
look  for  a  godfather." 

And  the  stranger  said : 

"  Take  me  for  a  godfather." 

The  peasant  was  happy,  thanked  the  stranger,  and 
said: 

"  And  whom  shall  I  call  in  as  a  godmother  ? " 

"  Call  a  merchant's  daughter,"  said  the  stranger.  "  Go 
into  the  town :  on  the  square  there  is  a  stone  house  with 

470 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  471 

shops ;  at  the  entrance  into  the  house  ask  the  merchant 
to  let  his  daughter  go  as  a  godmother." 

The  peasant  hesitated. 

"  How  can  I,"  he  said,  "  oh,  godfather,  go  to  the  rich 
merchant  ?  He  will  hold  me  in  contempt,  and  will  not 
let  his  daughter  go." 

"  That  is  not  your  grief.  Go  and  ask  him.  Be  pre- 
pared to-morrow  morning,  —  I  will  come  to  be  sponsor." 

The  poor  peasant  returned  home,  and  he  went  to  town 
to  see  the  merchant.  He  put  up  the  horse  in  the  yard, 
when  the  merchant  himself  came  out. 

"  What  do  you  want  ? "  he  asked. 

"  It  is  like  this,  Mr.  Merchant.  The  Lord  has  given 
me  a  child,  in  childhood  a  care,  in  old  age  a  consolation, 
and  after  death  for  my  soul's  remembrance.  Please,  let 
your  daughter  be  his  godmother." 

"  When  will  the  christening  be  ? " 

"  To-morrow  morning." 

"  Very  well,  God  be  with  you.  She  will  come  to-mor- 
row to  mass." 

On  the  next  day  the  godmother  came,  and  so  did  the 
godfather,  and  the  child  was  christened.  The  moment 
the  christening  was  over,  the  godfather  went  away,  and 
no  one  found  out  who  he  was,  or  ever  saw  him  again. 


n. 

The  child  began  to  grow  to  his  parents'  joy :  he  was 
strong,  and  willing  to  work,  and  clever,  and  well-behaved. 
The  boy  was  ten  years  old,  when  his  parents  had  him 
taught  to  read.  What  it  takes  others  five  years  to  learn, 
the  boy  learned  in  one,  and  there  was  nothing  else  they 
could  teach  him. 

Easter  week  came.  The  boy  went  down  to  see  his 
godmother,  to  exchange  the  Easter  greeting  with  her. 
When  he  returned  home,  he  asked : 


472  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

"  Father  and  mother,  where  does  my  godfather  live  ?  I 
should  like  to  exchange  the  Easter  greeting  with  him." 

And  the  father  said  to  him : 

"  We  do  not  know,  beloved  son,  where  your  godfather 
lives.  We  ourselves  feel  sorry  for  it.  We  have  not  seen 
him  since  he  christened  you.  We  have  not  heard  of  him, 
and  we  do  not  know  where  he  lives,  or  whether  he  is 
alive." 

The  boy  bowed  to  his  father  and  to  his  mother : 

"  Father  and  mother,"  he  said,  "  let  me  go  to  find  him. 
I  want  to  find  him,  —  to  exchange  the  Easter  greeting 
with  him." 

The  parents  let  him  go,  and  he  went  to  find  his  god- 
father. 

in. 

The  boy  left  the  house,  and  travelled  on  the  highway. 
After  walking  half  a  day,  he  met  a  stranger. 

The  stranger  stopped. 

"Good  day,  boy,"  he  said,  "whither  does  God  carry 
you?" 

And  the  boy  said : 

"I  went  to  exchange  the  Easter  greeting  with  my 
godmother ;  when  I  came  back  home  I  asked  my  parents 
where  my  godfather  lived,  as  I  wanted  to  exchange  the 
Easter  greeting  with  him.  My  parents  said  to  me: 
'  We  do  not  know,  son,  where  your  godfather  lives.  After 
christening  you,  he  went  away  from  us,  and  we  know 
nothing  about  him,  and  we  do  not  know  whether  he  is 
alive.'  But  I  am  anxious  to  see  my  godfather,  and  so  I 
have  started  out  to  find  him." 

And  the  stranger  said : 

"  I  am  your  godfather." 

The  boy  was  happy,  and  exchanged  the  Easter  greeting 
with  his  godfather. 

"  Whither  are  you,  godfather,  wending  your  way  ? "  he 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  473 

asked.  "  If  you  are  going  in  our  direction,  come  to  our 
house ;  and  if  you  are  going  home,  I  will  go  with  you." 

And  the  godfather  said  : 

"  I  have  no  time  to  go  now  to  your  house,  —  I  have 
some  business  in  the  villages.  But  I  shall  be  at  home 
to-morrow,  so  come  to  me  then." 

«  But  how  shall  I  find  you,  father  ? " 

"Walk  all  the  time  toward  the  rising  of  the  sun, 
straight  ahead,  and  you  will  come  to  a  forest,  and  in  the 
forest  there  is  a  clearing.  Sit  down  in  that  clearing,  rest 
yourself,  and  watch  what  will  happen.  When  you  come 
out  of  the  forest,  you  will  see  a  garden,  and  in  the  garden 
there  is  a  booth  with  a  golden  roof :  that  is  my  house. 
Walk  up  to  the  gate,  and  I  will  come  out  to  meet  you." 

Thus  the  godfather  spoke,  and  disappeared  from  the 
godson's  view. 

IV. 

The  boy  went  as  the  godfather  had  told  him.  He 
walked  and  walked,  and  came  to  the  forest.  He  came 
out  on  the  clearing  and  saw  in  the  middle  of  it  a  fir-tree, 
and  on  the  fir-tree  a  rope  was  attached  to  a  branch,  and 
to  the  rope  was  tied  an  oak  log  weighing  some  three  puds. 
Under  the  log  there  was  a  trough  with  honey. 

The  boy  was  wondering  why  the  honey  was  placed 
there,  and  the  log  attached  above  it,  when  there  was  a 
crashing  through  the  woods,  and  he  saw  bears  coming 
out:  in  front  was  the  she-bear;  she  was  followed  by  a 
yearling,  and  behind  by  three  small  cubs.  The  she-bear 
scented  the  air  and  went  straight  to  the  trough,  and  the 
cubs  after  her. 

The  she-bear  stuck  her  muzzle  into  the  honey:  she 
called  up  the  cubs,  and  they  rushed  up  and  made  for 
the  trough.  The  log  moved  away  a  httle  and  turned 
back  and  struck  the  cubs.  When  the  she-bear  saw  this, 
she  moved  the  log  away  with  her  paw.     The  log  moved 


474  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

back  farther,  came  back  again,  and  struck  into  the  midst 
of  the  cubs,  hitting  some  on  the  back  and  some  on  the 
head. 

The  cubs  howled  and  jumped  away.  The  she-bear 
grew  furious,  grabbed  the  log  above  her  head  with  both 
her  paws,  and  swung  it  far  away  from  herself.  The  log 
flew  up  high ;  in  the  meantime  the  yearling  ran  up  to  the 
trough,  stuck  his  muzzle  into  the  honey,  and  began  to 
lap  it,  and  the  others,  too,  began  to  come  up  to  it.  They 
had  barely  come  up,  when  the  log  swept  back  and 
whacked  the  yearling  on  the  head,  killing  him  on  the 
spot.  The  she-bear  growled  more  than  ever,  and  grabbed 
the  log  and  sent  it  with  all  her  strength  flying  upward. 

The  log  flew  higher  than  the  branch,  so  that  even  the 
rope  was  slackened,  and  the  she-bear  ran  up  to  the 
trough,  and  all  the  cubs  with  her.  The  log  flew  up  and 
up,  and  stopped,  and  started  downward.  The  lower  it 
went,  the  faster  it  flew.  It  came  down  with  a  crash  and 
banged  the  she-bear  on  the  head.  She  rolled  over,  jerked 
her  legs,  and  was  dead.     The  cubs  ran  away. 


The  boy  marvelled  at  this,  and  walked  on.  He  came 
to  a  large  garden,  and  in  it  there  was  a  high  palace  with  a 
golden  roof.  The  godfather  was  standing  at  the  gate,  and 
smihng.  He  exchanged  greetings  with  his  godson,  led 
him  through  the  gate,  and  took  him  through  the  garden. 
Even  in  his  dream  the  boy  had  not  thought  of  such 
beauty  and  joy  as  there  were  in  this  garden. 

The  godfather  led  the  boy  into  the  palace.  The  palace 
was  even  more  beautiful.  He  took  the  boy  through  all 
the  rooms :  they  were  one  more  beautiful  than  the  other, 
and  one  more  cheerful  than  the  other,  and  he  brought 
him  to  a  locked  door. 

"  Do  you  see  this  door  ? "  he  said.     "  There  is  no  lock 


POPULAR   LEGENDS  475 

on  it,  —  there  are  only  some  seals.  It  is  possible  to  open 
it,  but  I  command  you  not  to  do  so.  Live  and  enjoy 
yourself  wherever  and  however  you  please;  enjoy  all 
joys,  but  this  is  the  one  commandment:  do  not  enter 
through  this  door.  But  if  you  do  go  in  through  it,  re- 
member what  you  saw  in  the  woods." 

The  godfather  said  this,  and  went  away.  The  godson 
was  left  alone,  and  began  to  live.  He  was  so  happy 
and  so  cheerful  that  he  thought  he  had  lived  here  but 
three  hours,  whereas  thirty  years  had  passed.  When  the 
tbirty  years  had  passed,  the  godson  went  up  to  the  sealed 
door  and  thought : 

"  Why  did  my  godfather  not  permit  me  to  enter  this 
room  ?     I  will  go  and  see  what  there  is  there." 

He  pushed  the  door,  the  seals  flew  back,  and  the  door 
opened.  The  godson  went  in,  and  he  saw  larger  and 
more  beautiful  rooms  than  any,  and  in  the  middle  of  the 
rooms  stood  a  golden  throne.  The  godson  walked  from 
one  room  to  another,  and  he  went  up  to  the  throne,  and 
walked  up  its  steps  and  sat  down.  Near  the  throne  he 
saw  a  sceptre.  He  took  the  sceptre  into  his  hands.  The 
moment  he  lifted  it,  all  four  walls  of  the  room  disap- 
peared, and  he  saw  everything  which  was  going  on  in  the 
world.  He  looked  straight  ahead  of  him,  and  he  saw 
the  sea,  and  ships  sailing  on  it.  He  looked  to  the  right 
and  he  saw  where  foreign,  non-Christian  people  were 
living.  He  looked  to  the  left,  and  he  saw  where  Christian 
people,  but  not  Eussians,  were  living.  He  looked  into 
the  fourth  side,  and  there  were  our  Eussians. 

"  I  will  just  see,"  he  said, "  what  is  going  on  at  home,  — 
whether  the  corn  grows  well  there." 

He  looked  at  his  field  and  saw  cocks  of  corn  there. 
He  began  to  count  the  cocks,  to  see  how  much  corn 
there  was,  and  he  saw  a  cart  coming  into  the  field,  and  a 
man  sitting  inside  of  it.  The  godson  thought  that  his 
father  was  coming  in  the  night  to  haul  away  the  ricks. 


476  POPULAR   LEGENDS 

He  took  a  good  look  at  him,  and  saw  that  it  was  Vdska 
Kudrashdv,  the  thief,  who  was  coming  in  the  cart.  He 
drove  up  to  the  cocks,  and  began  to  load  them  on.  That 
made  the  godson  angry.     He  shouted  : 

"  Father,  your  sheaves  are  being  stolen  from  the  field  ! " 

His  father  woke  up  in  the  pasture. 

"  I  had  a  dream  that  they  are  stealing  my  sheaves,"  he 
said.     "  I  must  go  and  see." 

He  jumped  on  a  horse,  and  rode  off.  When  he  came 
to  the  field,  he  saw  VasiH,  and  so  he  called  the  peasants 
together.  They  beat  Vasili,  and  tied  him,  and  took  him 
to  the  jail. 

The  godson  now  looked  into  the  town  where  his  god- 
mother was  living.  He  saw  her  married  to  a  merchant. 
She  was  lying  and  sleeping,  but  her  husband  got  up  and 
went  to  his  mistress.  The  godson  cried  to  his  god- 
mother : 

"  Get  up !     Your  husband  is  doing  something  bad." 

His  godmother  jumped  up,  dressed  herself,  found  out 
where  her  husband  was,  disgraced  and  beat  the  mistress, 
and  drove  her  husband  away  from  her. 

Then  the  godson  looked  at  his  mother,  and  saw  her 
lying  in  the  hut,  and  a  robber  slinking  into  the  house 
and  breaking  into  her  trunk. 

The  mother  awoke,  and  cried  aloud.  When  the  robber 
saw  her,  he  took  hold  of  an  axe,  and  swung  it,  wishing 
to  kill  her. 

The  godson  did  not  hold  out,  but  hurled  the  sceptre  at 
the  robber,  and  struck  him  straight  on  his  temple,  and 
killed  him  on  the  spot. 

VL 

The  moment  the  godson  killed  the  robber,  the  walls 
closed  up  again,  and  the  room  became  what  it  was. 
The  door  opened,  and  the  godfather   came   in.     He 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  477 

walked  over  to  his  godson,  took  his  hand,  led  him  down 
from  the  throne,  and  said : 

"You  did  not  obey  my  command,  —  you  have  done 
a  bad  thing  in  opening  the  forbidden  door ;  another  bad 
thing  you  did  when  you  ascended  the  throne  and  took 
my  sceptre ;  a  third  bad  thing  you  did,  —  you  added 
much  evil  to  the  world.  If  you  had  been  sitting  here 
another  hour,  you  would  have  ruined  half  the  people." 

And  the  godfather  led  his  godson  up  to  the  throne,  and 
took  the  sceptre  into  his  hand.  And  again  were  the  walls 
removed,  and  everything  became  visible. 

And  the  godfather  said : 

"  See  now  what  you  have  done  to  your  father !  Vasili 
has  been  a  year  in  prison,  where  he  has  learned  all  kinds 
of  evil  deeds  and  has  become  entirely  a  beast.  See  there ! 
He  has  driven  off  two  of  your  father's  horses,  and,  you 
see,  he  is  setting  fire  to  his  farmhouses.  This  is  what 
you  have  done  to  your  father." 

The  moment  the  godson  saw  his  father's  house  on  fire, 
the  godfather  hid  this  from  him,  and  ordered  him  to  look 
in  another  direction. 

"  Here,"  he  said,  "  the  husband  of  your  godmother  has 
abandoned  his  wife  for  more  than  a  year,  and  is  making 
free  with  other  women,  while  she,  from  grief,  has  taken 
to  drink,  and  his  former  mistress  is  entirely  lost.  This  is 
what  you  have  done  to  your  godmother." 

And  the  godfather  hid  this  from  him,  and  showed  him 
his  house.  And  he  saw  his  mother:  she  was  weeping 
on  account  of  her  sins,  and  repenting  them,  and  saying, 
"  It  would  have  been  better  if  the  murderer  had  killed 
me  then,  for  I  should  not  have  committed  so  many  sins." 

"  This  is  what  you  have  done  to  your  mother." 

And  the  godfather  hid  this,  too,  from  him,  and  pointed 
downward.  And  the  godson  saw  the  robber;  two  guard* 
were  holding  him  before  the  dark  place. 

And  the  godfather  said  to  him : 


478  POPULAR   LEGENDS 

"  This  man  has  ruined  nine  souls.  He  ought  to  redeem 
his  own  sins ;  but  you  have  killed  him,  and  so  have  taken 
all  his  sins  upon  yourself.  Now  you  will  have  to  answer 
for  all  his  sins.  That  is  what  you  have  done  to  yourself. 
The  she-bear  pushed  away  the  log,  and  so  disturbed  the 
cubs;  she  pushed  it  away  a  second  time,  and  killed 
the  yearling;  she  pushed  it  away  a  third  time,  and 
killed  herself.  You  have  done  the  same.  I  give  you 
now  thirty  years'  time.  Go  into  the  world,  and  redeem 
the  sins  of  the  robber.  If  you  do  not  redeem  them,  you 
will  have  to  go  in  his  place." 

And  the  godson  said : 

"  How  can  I  redeem  his  sins  ?  " 

And  the  godfather  said : 

"  When  you  shall  have  freed  the  world  from  as  much 
evil  as  you  have  carried  into  it,  you  will  have  redeemed 
your  sins  as  well  as  those  of  the  robber." 

And  the  godson  asked : 

"  How  can  I  free  the  world  from  sins  ?  ** 

And  the  godfather  said : 

"  Go  straight  toward  the  rising  sun,  and  you  will  come 
to  a  field,  with  men  upon  it.  Watch  the  people  to  see 
what  they  are  doing,  and  teach  them  what  you  know. 
Then  walk  on,  and  take  note  of  what  you  see;  on  the 
fourth  day  you  will  come  to  a  forest ;  in  the  forest  there 
is  a  cell,  and  in  the  cell  lives  a  hermit.  Tell  him  every- 
thing that  has  happened.  He  will  teach  you  what  to  do. 
When  you  have  done  everything  that  the  hermit  com- 
mands you  to  do,  you  will  have  redeemed  your  sins  and 
those  of  the  robber." 

Thus  spoke  the  godfather,  and  he  saw  his  godson  out 
of  the  gate. 

vn. 

The  godson  went  away.     As  he  walked,  he  thought : 
"  How  can  I  free  the  world  from  evil  ?     They  destroy 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  479 

evil  by  sending  evil  people  to  hard  labour,  locking  them 
up  in  prisons,  and  putting  them  to  death.  What  shall  I 
do,  then,  to  destroy  evil,  and  not  to  take  other  people's 
sins  upon  myself  ? " 

The  godson  thought  and  thought,  but  could  not  think 
out  anything.  He  walked  for  a  long  time,  and  finally 
came  to  a  field.  In  the  field  the  corn  had  grown  large 
and  thick,  and  it  was  time  to  harvest  it.  The  godson 
saw  a  heifer  get  into  the  corn.  When  the  people  saw  it, 
they  mounted  their  horses,  and  began  to  drive  the  heifer 
through  the  corn,  now  from  one  side  and  now  from 
another.  The  moment  the  heifer  was  ready  to  run  out 
of  the  com,  a  rider  passed  by,  which  frightened  the  heifer, 
and  she  went  back  into  the  com ;  agaiu  they  galloped 
after  her  through  the  com.  But  a  woman  was  standing  in 
the  road,  and  weeping :  "  They  are  going  to  get  my  heifer." 

And  the  godson  said  to  the  peasants : 

"  Why  are  you  doing  this  ?  Eide  all  of  you  out  of  the 
com.     Let  the  woman  call  her  heifer ! " 

The  people  obeyed  him.  The  woman  went  up  to  the 
edge  and  began  to  call  her  heifer:  "Tpryusi,  tpryusi, 
browny,  tpryusi,  tpryusi!" 

The  heifer  pricked  her  ears,  stopped  to  listen,  and  ran 
straight  toward  the  woman,  and  put  her  mouth  into 
the  woman's  lap,  almost  knocking  her  down.  And  the 
peasants  were  glad,  and  the  woman  was  glad,  and 
the  heifer  was  glad.  i 

The  godson  walked  on,  thinking : 

"Now  I  see  that  evil  increases  through  evil.  The 
more  people  persecute  evil,  the  more  do  they  multiply  it. 
It  is  evident  that  evil  cannot  be  destroyed  through  evil. 
But  I  do  not  know  how  to  destroy  it.  It  is  well  that  the 
heifer  obeyed  her  mistress ;  but  how  could  she  have  been 
called  out,  if  she  had  not  obeyed  ? " 

The  godson  thought  and  thought,  but  could  not  think 
it  out.     He  went  farther. 


480  POPULAR  LEGENDS 


VIIL 

He  walked  and  walked,  until  he  came  to  a  village. 
He  asked  at  the  outer  hut  to  be  allowed  to  stay 
there  overnight.  The  mistress  let  him  in.  There 
was  no  one  in  the  hut  but  the  mistress,  and  she  was 
washing. 

The  godson  went  in,  climbed  on  the  oven,  and  began  to 
look  around,  to  see  what  the  mistress  was  doing.  He  saw 
that  she  had  washed  the  house,  and  was  now  washing  the 
table.  After  she  had  washed  the  table,  she  began  to  wipe 
it  with  a  dirty  towel.  She  began  to  wipe  it  on  one  side, 
but  the  table  did  not  get  clean :  the  dirty  towel  left  strips 
of  dirt  on  the  table.  She  began  to  wipe  in  another  direc- 
tion ;  she  wiped  off  some  of  the  stripes,  but  made  other 
stripes  come  out.  She  began  once  more  to  rub  length- 
wise, and  again  it  was  the  same :  she  soiled  the  table 
with  the  dirty  towel.  She  wiped  off  the  dirt  in  one 
place,  and  rubbed  it  on  in  another.  The  godson  looked 
at  it  for  awhile,  and  said : 

"  Mistress,  what  are  you  doing  there  ? " 

"  Do  you  not  see  ? "  she  said.  "  I  am  cleaning  up  for 
the  holiday.  I  somehow  cannot  get  the  table  clean,  —  it 
is  so  dirty.     I  am  all  worn  out  from  it." 

"If  you  would  just  wash  the  towel,"  he  said,  "you 
would  be  able  to  get  it  clean." 

The  mistress  did  so,  and  she  got  her  table  clean. 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said,  "  for  having  taught  me." 

Next  morning  the  godson  bade  the  mistress  good-bye, 
and  went  away.  He  walked  and  walked,  and  came  to  a 
forest.  There  he  saw  some  peasants  bending  hoops. 
The  godson  went  up  to  them,  and  saw  the  peasants 
walking  in  a  circle,  but  the  hoop  did  not  bend.  He 
looked  on  awhile,  and  saw  that  the  vise  was  not  fastened, 
but  turning  around.     So  he  said : 

"  Friends,  what  are  you  doing  there  ? " 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  481 

"We  are  bending  hoops.  We  have  steamed  them 
twice,  and  we  are  all  worn  out,  —  they  do  not  bend." 

"  Friends,  fasten  the  vise,  for  you  are  turning  around 
with  it." 

The  peasants  obeyed  him,  fastened  the  vise,  and  things 
went  after  that. 

The  godson  remained  with  them  overnight,  and  went 
farther.  He  walked  a  whole  day  and  a  night,  and  before 
the  dawn  came  to  some  drovers.  He  lay  down  near  them. 
He  saw  that  the  drovers  had  put  away  the  cattle,  and  were 
trying  to  start  a  fire.  They  took  dry  leaves  and  set  them 
on  fire,  and  before  they  burned  well,  they  put  on  them  wet 
twigs.  The  twigs  hissed,  anfl  the  fire  went  out.  The 
drovers  took  some  more  dry  leaves  and  set  them  on  fire, 
and  again  put  on  wet  twigs.  The  fire  was  again  put  out. 
They  worked  for  a  long  time,  but  the  fire  would  not 
burn. 

And  the  godson  said : 

"  Don't  be  in  a  hurry  to  put  on  the  twigs,  but  first  let 
the  leaves  burn  well.  When  the  fire  is  well  started,  you 
may  put  on  the  twigs." 

The  drovers  did  so :  they  started  a  good  fire,  and  then 
heaped  up  the  twigs.  The  twigs  caught  fire  and  burned 
well.  The  godson  remained  with  them  awhile,  and  then 
went  farther.  He  thought  and  thought  why  he  had  seen 
these  three  things,  but  he  could  not  understand. 

K. 

The  godson  walked  and  walked.  A  day  passed.  He 
came  to  a  forest,  and  in  the  forest  was  a  cell.  He  went 
up  to  the  cell,  and  knocked.     A  voice  inside  asked : 

"Who  is  there?" 

"A  great  sinner:  I  want  to  redeem  other  people's 
sins." 

The  hermit  came  out,  and  asked : 


482  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

"  What  are  those  sins  of  other  people  which  are  upon 
you?" 

The  godson  told  him  everything :  ahout  his  godfather, 
and  about  the  she-bear  and  her  cubs,  and  about  the  throne 
in  the  sealed  room,  and  about  what  the  godfather  had 
commanded  him  to  do,  and  about  his  having  seen  the 
peasants  trample  down  all  the  com,  and  about  the  heifer's 
coming  out  herself  to  her  mistress. 

"  I  now  understand  that  evil  cannot  be  destroyed  by 
evil,  but  I  cannot  understand  how  it  is  to  be  destroyed. 
Teach  me  how." 

And  the  hermit  said : 

"  Tell  me  what  else  you  Saw  on  the  road." 

The  godson  told  him  about  the  woman's  cleaning  up, 
and  about  the  peasants'  bending  of  the  hoops,  and  about 
the  drovers'  making  a  fire. 

When  the  hermit  had  heard  it  all,  he  went  back  to  his 
cell  and  brought  out  a  notched  and  battered  axe. 

"  Come  with  me,"  he  said. 

The  hermit  went  a  distance  away  from  the  cell,  and 
pointed  to  a  tree. 

"  Cut  it  down,"  he  said. 

The  godson  cut  the  tree,  and  it  fell  down. 

"  Cut  it  now  into  three  parts." 

The  godson  cut  it  into  three  parts.  The  hermit  went 
again  into  the  cell,  and  brought  some  fire. 

"  Burn  the  three  logs,"  he  said. 

The  godson  started  the  fire  and  burned  the  three  logs, 
and  three  smudges  were  left. 

"  Bury  them  half  into  the  ground,  —  like  this." 

The  godson  buried  them. 

"  You  see,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  is  a  river :  bring  the 
water  from  there  in  your  mouth,  and  water  them.  Water 
this  smudge  as  you  taught  the  woman  ;  water  this  smudge 
as  you  taught  the  coopers;  water  this  smudge  as  you 
taught  the  drovers.     When  all  three  shall  have  sprouted 


POPULAR   LEGENDS  483 

and  three  apple-trees  shall  have  grown  from  the  smudges, 
you  will  know  how  to  destroy  evil  among  men;  and 
then  you  will  redeem  the  sins." 

Having  said  this,  the  hermit  went  back  to  his  cell. 
The  godson  thought  and  thought,  but  could  not  under- 
stand what  the  hermit  had  told  him.  However,  he  did 
as  he  was  commanded. 

X. 

The  godson  went  to  the  river,  filled  his  mouth  full  of 
water,  poured  it  out  on  a  smudge,  and  went  back  for 
more,  —  and  so  he  watered  the  other  two  smudges.  The 
godson  grew  tired,  and  wanted  to  eat.  He  went  to 
the  cell,  to  ask  the  hermit  for  something  to  eat.  He 
opened  the  door,  but  the  hermit  lay  dead  on  a  bench. 
The  godson  looked  around  and  found  some  hardtack, 
which  he  ate ;  then  he  found  a  spade,  and  began  to  dig 
a  grave  for  the  hermit.  In  the  night  he  carried  water  to 
the  smudges,  and  in  the  daytime  he  dug  the  grave.  He 
had  just  finished  the  grave  and  was  about  to  bury  the 
hermit,  when  people  came  from  the  village,  bringing  food 
for  the  hermit. 

The  people  learned  that  the  hermit  had  died,  and  that 
he  had  blessed  the  godson  in  his  place.  The  people 
buried  the  hermit,  and  left  the  bread  for  the  godson; 
they  promised  to  bring  him  more,  and  went  away. 

And  so  the  godson  remained  to  live  in  the  place  of  the 
hermit.  He  lived  there,  and  ate  what  the  people  brought 
to  him,  and  kept  doing  the  work  which  he  had  been  com- 
manded to  do,  carrying  water  in  his  mouth  from  the  river, 
to  water  the  smudges. 

Thus  the  godson  passed  a  year,  and  many  people  began 
to  come  to  him.  The  rumour  went  abroad  that  a  holy 
man  was  living  in  the  forest,  finding  his  salvation  in 
carrying  water  in  his  mouth  from  the  river  at  the  foot  of 
the  hill,  and  watering  the  burned  stumps.     A  multitude 


484  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

began  to  come  to  him.  Kich  merchants,  too,  began  to 
come  to  him,  bringing  him  presents.  The  godson 
took  nothing  from  them,  except  what  he  needed,  and 
what  they  gave  him,  he  turned  over  to  other  poor 
people. 

And  this  is  the  way  the  godson  lived:  half  the  day 
he  carried  water  in  his  mouth,  watering  the  smudges, 
and  the  other  half  he  rested  himself  and  received  the 
people. 

And  the  godson  came  to  think  that  he  had  been  com- 
manded to  live  in  this  manner,  thus  destroying  evil  and 
redeeming  sins. 

So  the  godson  lived  another  year,  and  did  not  miss 
watering  the  smudges  a  single  day,  but  they  did  not 
sprout. 

One  day  he  was  sitting  in  the  cell,  when  he  heard  a 
man  ride  by  him  singing  songs.  The  godson  went  out  to 
see  who  the  man  was.  He  saw  that  he  was  a  strong  lad. 
He  wore  good  clothes,  and  his  horse  and  the  saddle  under 
him  were  fine. 

The  godson  stopped  him,  and  asked  him  what  kind  of 
a  man  he  was  and  whither  he  was  riding. 

The  man  stopped. 

"  I  am  a  robber,'*  he  said,  "  and  am  travelling  along  the 
roads,  killing  people :  the  more  people  I  kill,  the  merrier 
the  songs  are  which  I  sing." 

The  godson  was  frightened,  and  said : 

"  How  can  I  destroy  the  evil  in  this  man  ?  It  is  easy 
enough  for  me  to  talk  to  those  who  come  to  me,  and 
themselves  repent  their  sins.  But  this  one  boasts  of 
evil." 

The  godson  did  not  say  anything,  but  went  away,  and 
thought  what  to  do  now.  "If  the  robber  takes  it  into 
his  head  to  rove  here,  the  people  will  become  scared,  and 
will  stop  coming  to  see  me.  They  will  lose  their  advan- 
tage, and  how  shall  I  live  then  ? " 


POPULAB  LEGENDS 


485 


And  the  godson  stopped,  and  said  to  the  robber : 

"  People  come  here,  not  to  boast  of  evil,  but  to  repent 
and  to  pray  for  their  sins.  Kepent,  if  you  are  afraid  of 
God ;  if  you  do  not  wish  to  repent,  go  away  from  here, 
and  never  come  back  to  disturb  me,  and  to  frighten  the 
people.  If  you  will  not  pay  any  attention  to  me,  God 
will  punish  you." 

The  robber  laughed. 

"  I  am  not  afraid  of  God,"  he  said,  "  and  I  will  pay  no 
attention  to  you.  You  are  not  my  master.  You  live  by 
your  praying,  and  I  live  by  robbery.  All  have  to  Hve  in 
some  way.  Teach  the  women  that  come  to  see  you,  but 
you  cannot  teach  me.  Since  you  have  mentioned  God  to 
me,  I  will  kill  two  additional  men  to-morrow.  I  should 
have  killed  you,  but  I  do  not  want  to  soil  my  hands. 
Don't  ever  get  in  my  way  again." 

Thus  the  robber  threatened  him,  and  went  away.  He 
never  came  back,  and  the  godson  lived  quietly,  as  before, 
for  eight  years. 

XL 

One  night  the  godson  went  out  to  water  his  smudges. 
He  came  back  to  the  cell,  to  rest  himself,  and  he  sat  and 
looked  at  the  footpath,  to  see  whether  people  would  come 
soon.  On  that  day  not  one  man  came.  The  godson  sat 
there  alone  until  evening,  and  he  felt  lonely,  and  thought 
about  his  life.  He  remembered  how  the  robber  had 
rebuked  him  for  living  by  praying.  And  so  the  godson 
looked  back  upon  his  life. 

"  I  am  not  living  as  the  hermit  told  me  to,"  he  thought. 
"  The  hermit  imposed  a  penance  on  me,  while  I  have 
earned  a  living  and  fame  by  it.  And  I  have  been  so 
tempted  by  it  that  I  feel  lonely  when  people  do  not  come 
to  me.  I  have  not  redeemed  my  former  sins,  and  have 
only  added  new  ones.  I  will  go  into  the  woods,  to 
another  place,  so  that  the  people  may  not  find  me.     I 


486  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

will  live  all  by  myself,  so  as  to  redeem  my  old  sins,  and 
not  add  new  ones." 

Thus  thought  the  hermit,  and  he  took  a  bag  full  of 
hardtack  and  a  spade,  and  went  away  from  the  cell, 
toward  a  ravine,  in  order  to  build  him  an  earth  hut  in  a 
hidden  place,  where  the  people  might  not  see  him. 

The  godson  was  walking  with  his  bag  and  with  his 
spade,  when  the  robber  rode  up  to  him.  The  godson 
became  frightened,  and  wanted  to  run,  but  the  robber 
overtook  him. 

"  Whither  are  you  going  ? "  he  said. 

The  godson  told  him  that  he  wanted  to  go  away  from 
the  people,  to  a  place  where  the  people  could  not  reach 
him.     The  robber  was  surprised. 

"  What  will  you  now  live  by,  if  people  stop  coming  to 
you?" 

The  godson  had  not  thought  of  it  before,  but  when  the 
robber  asked  him  this,  he  thought  of  the  food. 

"  By  what  God  will  give  me,"  he  said. 

The  robber  said  nothing,  and  rode  on. 

"Why  did  I  not  tell  him  anything  about  his  life?" 
thought  the  godson.  "  Maybe  he  wodd  repent  now.  He 
seems  to  be  kinder  to-day,  and  did  not  threaten  to  kill 
me." 

And  the  godson  called  out  to  the  robber : 

"But  still  you  must  repent.  You  cannot  get  away 
from  God." 

The  robber  turned  his  horse  around.  He  pulled  his 
knife  out  of  the  girdle,  and  swung  it  to  strike  the  godson. 
The  godson  became  frightened,  and  ran  into  the  forest. 

The  robber  did  not  run  after  him,  but  only  said : 

"  Twice  have  I  forgiven  you,  but  if  you  come  in  my 
way  the  third  time,  I  will  kiU  you." 

Having  said  this,  he  rode  off.  In  the  evening  the 
godson  went  to  water  the  smudges,  and,  behold,  one  of 
them  had  sprouted ;  an  apple-tree  was  growing  from  it. 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  487 


XIL 

The  godson  hid  himself  from  the  people,  and  began  to 
live  alone.     His  hardtack  gave  out. 

"  Well,"  he  thought,  "  now  I  will  look  for  herbs." 

He  went  out  to  look  for  herbs,  when  he  saw  a  bag  with 
hardtack  hanging  on  a  branch.  He  took  it,  and  lived 
on  that  hardtack. 

When  this  hardtack  gave  out,  another  bag  of  it  was 
hanging  on  the  same  branch.  And  thus  the  godson 
lived.  But  he  had  this  grief,  —  he  was  afraid  of  the 
robber.  Whenever  he  heard  the  robber,  he  hid  himself; 
He  thought : 

"  If  he  kills  me,  I  shall  not  have  a  chance  to  redeem 
my  sins." 

Thus  he  lived  another  ten  years.  The  one  apple-tree 
grew,  but  the  other  smudges  remained  such  as  they 
were. 

One  morning  the  godson  went  early  to  do  his  work; 
he  watered  the  earth  around  the  smudges,  and  he  was 
tired  and  sat  down  to  rest  himself.  He  was  sitting  and 
resting  himself,  and  thinking : 

"  I  have  sinned,  to  be  afraid  of  death.  If  God  so 
wishes,  I  can  redeem  my  sins  by  my  death." 

No  sooner  had  he  said  this,  than  he  heard  the  robber 
riding  along,  and  cursing.  The  godson  heard  him,  and 
thought : 

"  Except  from  God,  nothing  good  nor  evil  will  befall 
me  from  anybody,"  and  he  went  to  meet  the  robber. 

He  saw  that  the  robber  was  not  travelling  by  himself, 
but  was  bringing  a  man  with  him  on  the  saddle.  The 
man's  hands  and  mouth  were  tied.  The  man  was  silent, 
and  the  robber  kept  cursing  him.  The  godson  went  up 
to  the  robber,  and  stood  in  front  of  the  horse. 

"  Whither  are  you  taking  this  man  ? "  he  asked. 

"  I  am  taking  him  to  the  forest.    He  is  the  son  of  a 


488  POPULAR  LEGENDS 

merchant.  He  will  not  tell  me  where  his  father's  money 
is  hidden,  and  I  will  flog  him  until  he  does  tell." 

The  robber  wanted  to  ride  on  ;  but  the  godson  did  not 
let  him,  —  he  seized  the  horse  by  the  bridle. 

"  Let  this  man  go,"  he  said. 

The  robber  grew  angry  at  the  godson,  and  wanted  to 
strike  him. 

"  Do  you  want  me  to  do  the  same  to  you  ?  I  have 
told  you  I  would  kill  you.     Let  me  go ! " 

The  godson  was  not  frightened. 

"  I  will  not  let  you  go,"  he  said.  "  I  am  not  afraid  of 
you,  but  only  of  God.  God  does  not  allow  me  let  you 
go.     Set  the  man  free  ! " 

The  robber  scowled,  took  out  his  knife,  cut  the  ropes, 
and  set  free  the  merchant's  son. 

"  Get  away  from  me,"  he  said.  "  Let  me  not  catch  you 
again ! " 

The  merchant's  son  leaped  down  and  ran  away.  The 
robber  wanted  to  ride  on,  but  the  godson  stopped  him 
again ;  he  began  to  talk  to  him  about  giving  up  his  bad 
life.  The  robber  stood  still  awhile  and  hstened  to  all  he 
had  to  say,  but  said  nothing,  and  rode  off. 

The  next  morning  the  godson  went  to  water  the 
smudges.  Behold,  another  smudge  had  sprouted,  —  again 
it  was  an  apple-tree  that  was  growing  from  it. 


XIIL 

Another  ten  years  passed.  One  day  the  godson  was 
sitting.  He  was  not  wishing  for  anything,  and  he  was  not 
afraid  of  anything,  and  his  heart  was  glad.  And  the  god- 
son thought : 

"What  grace  is  given  by  God  to  men!  But  they 
torment  themselves  in  vain.  They  ought  to  live  in  joy 
all  the  time." 

And  he  thought  of  aU  the  evil  of  men,  and  how  they 


POPULAR  LEGENDS  489 

tormented  themselves.  And  he  began  to  feel  sorry  for 
men. 

"  In  vain,"  he  thought,  "  I  live  this  way ;  I  must  go 
and  tell  people  what  I  know." 

No  sooner  had  he  thought  so,  than  he  heard  the  robber 
coming  along.  He  let  the  robber  pass  by  him,  and 
thought : 

"  What  use  is  there  in  speaking  to  him  ?  He  will  not 
understand." 

At  first  he  thought  so,  but  he  thought  it  over  again, 
and  went  out  on  the  road.  The  robber  passed  by,  look- 
ing gloomy  and  staring  at  the  ground.  The  godson  looked 
at  him,  and  felt  sorry  for  him,  and  ran  up  to  him,  and 
seized  him  by  his  knee. 

"  Dear  brother,"  he  said,  "  have  pity  on  thy  soul ! 
God's  spirit  is  in  you !  You  are  suffering  yourself,  and 
are  causing  others  to  suffer,  and  you  will  suffer  even  more. 
But  God  loves  you,  and  has  such  grace  in  store  for  you ! 
Do  not  ruin  yourself,  brother  !     Change  your  life ! " 

The  robber  scowled,  and  turned  his  face  away. 

"  Get  away  from  me,"  he  said. 

The  godson  embraced  the  robber's  knee  even  more 
firmly  and  began  to  weep. 

The  robber  raised  his  eyes  to  the  godson.  He  looked 
and  looked  at  him,  and  climbed  down  from  his  horse,  and 
knelt  before  the  godson. 

"  You  have  vanquished  me,  old  man,"  he  said.  "  Twenty 
years  have  I  struggled  with  you,  and  you  have  overcome 
me.  I  have  no  power  over  myself ;  you  can  do  with  me 
what  you  please.  When  you  tried  to  persuade  me  the  first 
time,  I  only  grew  more  savage.  I  began  to  think  of 
your  speeches  only  when  you  went  away  from  people 
and  found  out  that  you  yourself  did  not  need  anything 
from  men." 

And  the  godson  recalled  that  the  woman  washed  the 
table  clean  only  when  she  washed  the  towel.     When  he 


490  POPULAR   LEGENDS 

stopped  caring  for  himself,  and  cleansed  his  own  heart, 
he  was  able  to  cleanse  also  the  hearts  of  others. 

And  the  robber  said : 

"  And  my  heart  turned  in  me  only  when  you  did  not 
fear  death." 

And  the  godson  recalled  that  the  coopers  could  bend 
the  hoop  only  when  the  vise  was  made  firm.  When  he 
stopped  fearing  death,  and  made  his  life  firm  in  God,  the 
unruly  heart  was  vanquished. 

And  the  robber  said : 

"  And  my  heart  melted  completely  only  when  you  took 
pity  on  me  and  wept  before  me." 

The  godson  was  happy,  and  led  the  robber  to  where 
the  smudges  were.  When  they  came  up  to  them,  an 
apple-tree  had  sprouted  from  the  third  smudge.  And 
the  godson  recalled  that  the  wet  branches  caught  fire 
with  the  drovers  only  when  the  fire  burned  bright.  When 
his  heart  burned  bright,  another  man's  heart,  too,  burned 
up. 

And  the  godson  was  glad,  because  now  he  had  redeemed 
the  sins. 

He  told  all  this  to  the  robber,  and  died.  The  robber 
buried  him,  and  began  to  live  as  the  godson  had  com- 
manded him,  and  so  he  taught  the  people. 


THREE    SONS 

1892 


THREE    SONS 


A  FATHER  gave  his  son  some  property,  corn,  and  cattle, 
and  said  to  him : 

"  Live  like  me,  and  thou  wilt  always  fare  well." 
The    son    took   his  patrimony,  went  away  from    the 
father,  and  began  to  live  for  his  pleasure.     The  father 
had,  indeed,  told  him  to  live  like  him.     "  He  lives  and 
enjoys  himself,  and  so  will  I." 

Thus  he  lived  a  year,  two,  ten,  twenty  years,  —  and 
wasted  all  his  patrimony,  and  he  had  nothing  left; 
and  he  began  to  ask  his  father  to  give  him  more;  but 
his  father  did  not  listen  to  him.  Then  he  began  to  pro- 
pitiate his  father  and  to  give  to  him  the  best  things  he 
had,  and  to  ask  him  again.  But  his  father  made  no  reply 
to  him.  Then  the  son  began  to  ask  his  father's  forgive- 
ness, thinking  that  he  had  offended  him  in  some  way, 
and  again  asked  him  to  give  him  something;  but  his 
father  did  not  say  a  word. 

Then  the  son  began  to  imprecate  his  father,  saying : 
"  If  thou  dost  not  give  me  now,  why  didst  thou  give 
me  before  and  dole  out  my  part  to  me  and  promise  me 
that  I  should  fare  well  ?  All  my  former  joys,  when  I 
spent  my  estate,  are  not  worth  one  hour  of  the  present 
torments.  I  see  that  I  perish,  and  there  is  no  salvation. 
And  who  is  to  blame  ?  Thou.  Thou  knewest  that  my 
estate  would  not  be  sufficient,  and  thou  didst  not  give  me 
more.     All  thou  toldest  me  was,  "  Live  hke  me,  and  thou 

493 


494  THREE   SONS 

wilt  fare  well.  And  I  lived  like  thee.  Thou  livedst  for 
thy  joy,  and  I  lived  for  mine.  Thou  hast  more  left 
for  thyself,  so  thou  hast  some,  while  I  have  not  enough. 
Thou  art  not  a  father,  but  a  deceiver  and  evil-doer! 
Cursed  is  my  hfe,  and  cursed  be  thou,  evil-doer  and  tor- 
mentor, —  I  do  not  want  to  know  thee,  and  I  hate  thee ! " 
The  father  gave  also  some  property  to  the  second  son, 
saying  only : 

"  Live  like  me,  and  thou  wilt  always  fare  welL" 
The  second  son  was  not  so  much  rejoiced  at  his  estate 
as  had  been  the  first.  He  thought  that  he  received  his 
due;  but  he  knew  what  had  happened  with  his  elder 
brother,  and  so  began  to  think  that  he  might  lose  his 
property  like  the  first.  He  understood  this  much,  that 
his  eldest  brother  had  not  understood  correctly  the  words, 
"  Live  like  me,"  and  that  it  was  not  right  to  live  only  for 
one's  own  pleasure. 

He  began  to  brood  over  the  words,  "  Live  like  me." 
And  he  reasoned  out  that  it  was  necessary,  as  his 
father  had  done,  to  put  to  profit  the  estate  which  his  father 
gave  him.  And  he  began  to  ask  his  father  how  to  do 
this  or  that,  but  his  father  made  no  reply  to  him.  Then 
the  son  thought  that  his  father  was  afraid  to  tell  him, 
and  began  to  take  to  pieces  all  his  father's  things,  in 
order  to  see  for  himself  how  everything  was  done,  and  he 
spoiled  and  ruined  everything  which  he  had  received 
from  his  father,  and  everything  new  which  he  did  was 
all  to  no  profit.  But  he  did  not  want  to  acknowledge 
that  he  had  spoiled  everything,  and  so  he  lived  in  agony, 
telHng  all  that  his  father  had  given  him  nothing,  but  that 
he  had  made  everything  for  himself.  "  We  can  "all  of  us 
do  better  and  better,  and  shall  soon  reach  a  point  when 
everything  will  be  well."  Thus  spoke  the  second  son,  so 
long  as  anything  his  father  had  given  him  was  left  with 
him  ;  but  when  he  had  spent  the  last,  and  he  had  nothing 
to  live  on,  he  laid  hands  on  himself  and  killed  himself. 


THREE   SONS  495 

The  father  gave  just  such  an  estate  to  the  third  son, 
and  told  him  too : 

"  Live  like  me,  and  then  thou  wilt  always  fare  well." 

And  the  third  son,  like  the  first  and  the  second,  was 
glad  to  receive  the  estate,  and  went  away  from  his  father ; 
but  he  knew  what  had  happened  with  his  elder  brothers 
and  began  to  think  of  what  was  meant  by  the  words, 
"  Live  like  me,  and  thou  wilt  always  prosper." 

The  eldest  brother  had  thought  that  to  live  like  the 
father  meant  to  live  for  his  own  pleasure,  and  he  squan- 
dered everything,  and  was  ruiued. 

The  second  brother  had  thought  that  to  live  like  his 
father  meant  for  him  to  do  everything  which  his  father 
had  done,  and  he,  too,  came  to  despair.  What,  then,  is 
meant  by  living  like  the  father  ? 

And  he  began  to  recall  everything  he  knew  about  his 
father.  And  no  matter  how  much  he  thought,  he  could 
not  think  of  anything  else  about  his  father  except  that 
formerly  there  had  been  nothing,  not  even  himself,  and 
that  his  father  had  begotten,  brought  up,  and  educated 
him,  and  had  taught  and  given  him  everything  good,  and 
had  said,  "  Live  like  me,  and  thou  wilt  always  prosper." 
Even  thus  his  father  had  done  with  his  brothers.  And 
no  matter  how  much  he  thought,  he  could  not  think  of 
anything  else  about  his  father,  except  that  his  father  had 
done  good  to  him  and  to  his  brothers. 

And  then  he  comprehended  what  these  words  meant. 
He  understood  that  to  live  like  the  father  meant  to  do 
what  he  was  doing,  to  do  good  to  men.  And  when  he 
thought  of  this,  his  father  was  already  near  him,  and 
said: 

"  Here  we  are  again  together,  and  thou  wilt  always  fare 
well.  Go  to  thy  brother  and  to  all  of  my  children,  and 
tell  them  what  is  meant  by,  'Live  like  me,'  and  that 
those  who  will  live  like  me  will  always  fare  well." 

And  the  third  son  went  and  told  everything  to  his 


496  THREE    SOKS 

brother,  and  since  then  all  the  children,  in  receiving  their 
estate  from  their  father,  have  not  rejoiced  because  they 
have  a  large  estate,  but  because  they  can  live  like  the 
father,  and  will  always  fare  welL 

The  father  is  God ;  His  sons  are  men ;  the  estate  is  life. 
Men  think  that  they  can  live  alone  without  God. 

Some  of  these  men  think  that  their  life  is  given  to 
them  in  order  to  rejoice  in  this  life.  They  rejoice  and 
waste  this  life,  and  when  the  time  comes  to  die,  they  do 
not  understand  why  such  life  was  given  to  them,  since 
its  joys  end  in  suffering  and  death.  And  these  men  die, 
cursing  God  and  calling  Him  evil,  and  depart  from  God. 

This  is  the  first  son. 

Other  men  think  that  life  is  given  to  them  in  order 
that  they  may  understand  how  it  is  made,  and  in  order 
that  they  may  make  it  better  than  what  is  given  them  by 
God.  And  they  struggle  over  it,  to  make  another,  a  better 
life.  But,  in  improving  this  life,  they  ruin  it,  and  thus 
deprive  themselves  of  life. 

Other  people  say : 

"  Everything  we  know  of  God  is  that  He  gives  the 
good  to  men  and  commands  them  to  do  the  same,  and  so 
let  us  do  the  same  that  He  does,  —  good  to  men." 

And  the  moment  they  begin  to  do  so,  God  Himself 
comes  to  them,  and  says : 

"  This  is  precisely  what  I  wanted.  Do  with  me  what 
I  do,  and  as  I  live,  so  shall  you  live." 


LABOURER    EMELYAN    AND 
THE    EMPTY    DRUM 

A    Fairy-Tale 
1892 


LABOURER    EMELYAN    AND 
THE    EMPTY    DRUM' 


EmelyIn  was  working  for  a  master.  One  day  he  was 
walking  over  the  field,  to  his  work,  when  a  frog  jumped 
up  before  him :  he  almost  stepped  on  it.  Emelyan 
stepped  over  it.  Suddenly  he  heard  some  one  calling 
him  from  behind.  He  looked  around,  and  saw  there 
standing  a  beautiful  maiden,  and  she  said  to  him: 

"  Emelyan,  why  do  you  not  get  married  ? " 

"  How  can  I  marry,  pretty  maid  ?  All  I  have  is  what 
I  carry  with  me,  and  no  one  will  have  me." 

And  the  maiden  said : 

"  Take  me  for  a  wife ! " 

Emelyan  took  a  Mking  to  the  maiden. 

"  I  would  gladly  marry  you,"  he  said,  "  but  where  shall 
we  live  ? " 

«  We  shall  think  of  that,"  said  the  maiden.  "  If  only 
we  work  much  and  sleep  little,  we  shall  be  clothed  and 
fed  anywhere." 

"  Very  well,"  he  said,  "  let  us  get  married  !  Whither 
shall  we  go?" 

"  Let  us  go  to  the  city." 

Emely^  went  with  the  maiden  to  the  city.  She  took 
him  to  a  small  house  at  the  edge  of  the  city,  and  they 
were  married,  and  began  to  live. 

1 A  popular  tale,  created  along  the  V61ga  in  the  remote  past,  and 
reconstructed  by  Tolstdy. 

499 


500  LABOURER   EMELYAIT 

One  day  the  king  drove  beyond  the  city.  As  he  passed 
by  Emelyan's  house,  his  wife  came  out  to  look  at  the 
king.     The  king  saw  her,  and  marvelled : 

"  Where  was  such  a  beauty  bom  ?  " 

The  king  stopped  his  carriage,  and  called  up  Emely^'s 
wife,  and  began  to  ask  her : 

«  Who  are  you  ? " 

"  I  am  the  wife  of  Peasant  Emely^n,"  she  said. 

"Why  have  you,  who  are  such  a  beauty,  married  a 
peasant  ?  "  he  said.     "  You  ought  to  be  a  queBn." 

"  I  thank  you  for  your  kind  words,"  she  said.  "  I  am 
satisfied  with  a  peasant." 

The  king  spoke  with  her,  and  drove  on.  He  returned 
to  his  palace.  He  could  not  forget  Emelyan's  wife.  He 
could  not  sleep  the  whole  night  long,  thinking  all  the 
time  how  he  might  take  Emelyan's  wife  away.  He  could 
not  think  how  it  could  be  done.  He  called  his  servants, 
and  commanded  them  to  think  it  out.  And  the  servants 
of  the  king  said  to  him : 

"  Take  Emely^n  into  your  palace  to  work  for  you.  We 
will  kill  him  with  work,  and  his  wife  will  be  left  a 
widow,  then  you  can  take  her." 

So  the  king  did:  he  sent  for  Emelydn,  commanding 
him  to  be  a  janitor  in  his  palace,  and  to  live  in  the  palace 
with  his  wife. 

The  messengers  went  to  Emelydn,  and  told  him  so. 
His  wife  said : 

"  Why  not  ?  Go  !  Work  in  the  daytime,  and  come  to 
me  in  the  night ! " 

Emelydn  went.  When  he  came  to  the  palace,  the 
king's  steward  asked  him  : 

"  Why  did  you  come  by  yourself,  without  your  wife  ?  " 

"  Why  should  I  bring  her  ?  She  has  a  house  of  her 
own." 

They  gave  Emely^n  work  enough  for  two  to  do. 
Emelydn  took  hold  of  the  work,  thinking  he  would  never 


LABOURER  EMELYAN  501 

finish  it ;  but,  behold,  he  finished  it  before  night.  When 
the  steward  saw  that  he  got  through  with  it,  he  gave  him 
for  the  next  day  enough  for  four  to  do.  Emelyan  went 
home ;  but  at  his  home  everything  was  swept  clean  and 
tidied :  the  fire  was  made  in  the  oven,  and  everything  was 
baked  and  cooled.  His  wife  was  sitting  at  the  table, 
sewing  at  something,  and  waiting  for  her  husband.  She 
met  her  husband,  got  the  supper  ready,  gave  him  to  eat 
and  to  drink,  and  began  to  ask  him  about  his  work. 

"  Things  are  bad,"  he  said.  "  They  give  me  tasks  be- 
yond my  strength :  they  will  kill  me  with  work." 

"  Do  not  think  of  work,"  she  said.  "  Look  neither  for- 
ward nor  backward,  whether  you  have  done  much,  or 
whether  much  is  left  to  do.  Work,  and  everything  will 
come  out  in  proper  time." 

Emelyan  lay  down  to  sleep.  In  the  morning  he  went 
out  again.  He  took  hold  of  the  work,  and  did  not  look  back 
once.  Behold,  in  the  evening  everything  was  done,  and 
he  went  home  to  sleep,  while  it  was  yet  light.  They 
kept  increasing  his  task,  but  he  finished  his  work  in  time, 
and  went  home  to  sleep. 

A  week  passed.  The  king's  servants  saw  that  they 
could  not  wear  out  Emelyan  with  hard  labour,  and  so 
began  to  give  him  cunning  tasks;  but  they  could  not 
wear  him  out  with  these,  either.  No  matter  what  they 
gave  him  to  do,  whether  carpenter's,  or  mason's,  or 
thatcher's  work,  he  finished  all  by  the  set  time,  and  went 
home  to  his  wife  to  sleep.  Another  week  passed.  The 
king  called  up  his  servants,  and  said  to  them : 

"  Do  I  feed  you  for  nothing  ?  Two  weeks  have  passed, 
and  I  do  not  see  anything  from  you.  You  were  going  to 
kill  Emelyan  with  work,  and  I  see  each  day  through  the 
window  that  he  goes  home  singing  songs.  Do  you  mean 
to  make  fun  of  me  ? " 

The  king's  servants  began  to  justify  themselves. 

"  We  have  tried  with  all  our  might  and  main  to  wear 


502  LABOURER   EMELYAN 

him  out,  first  of  all,  with  menial  labour,  but  we  could  not 
vanquish  him.  No  matter  what  we  gave  him  to  do,  he 
did,  as  though  sweeping  it  clean,  and  feeling  no  weariness. 
We  began  to  give  him  cunning  work  to  do,  thinking  that 
he  would  not  have  sense  enough,  and  still  we  could  not 
overcome  him.  Where  does  it  all  come  from  ?  He  un- 
derstands everything,  and  does  everything.  Either  there 
is  some  witchery  in  him,  or  in  his  wife.  We  are  our- 
selves tired  of  him.  We  want  to  give  him  now  such 
work  to  do  that  he  will  be  unable  to  finish  it.  We  have 
decided  to  ask  him  to  build  a  cathedral  in  one  day.  Call 
in  Emelydn,  and  command  him  in  one  day  to  build  a 
cathedral  opposite  the  palace.  And  if  he  does  not  build 
it,  we  can  chop  off  his  head  for  his  disobedience." 

The  king  sent  for  Emelyan. 

"  Here  is  my  command,"  he  said  :  "  Build  me  a  new 
cathedral  opposite  the  palace,  on  the  square.  It  has  to 
be  ready  by  to-morrow  evening.  If  you  get  it  built,  I 
shall  reward  you ;  but  if  you  do  not,  I  shall  put  you  to 
death." 

When  Emelyan  had  heard  the  king's  words,  he  turned 
around  and  went  home. 

"  Well,"  he  thought,  "  now  my  end  has  come." 

He  came  to  his  wife  and  said : 

"  Wife,  get  ready !  you  must  run  away  wherever  you 
can,  or  else  you  will  lose  your  life." 

"  What  frightens  you  so,"  she  said,  "  that  you  want  to 
run  ? " 

"  How  can  I  help  being  frightened  ?  The  king  has 
commanded  me  to  build  a  cathedral  to-morrow,  in  one 
day.  If  I  do  not  get  it  built,  he  threatens  to  chop  off  my 
head.     There  is  nothing  left  to  do  but  run  away." 

His  wife  did  not  accept  his  words. 

"The  king  has  many  soldiers,  and  he  will  catch  you 
anywhere.  You  cannot  run  away  from  him.  So  long  as 
you  have  strength  you  must  obey  him." 


LABOURER   EMELYAN  603 

"  But  how  shall  I  obey,  if  I  have  not  the  strength  ? " 

"  Never  mind,  husband.  Do  not  trouble  yourself :  eat 
your  supper  and  lie  down  to  sleep ;  get  up  early  in  the 
morning,  and  all  will  go  well." 

Emelyan  lay  down  to  sleep ;  his  wife  woke  him  up. 

"  Go,"  she  said,  "  and  finish  the  cathedral  as  quickly  as 
you  can.  Here  are  nails  and  a  hammer.  You  will  find 
about  a  day's  work  left  to  do." 

Emelyan  went  into  .the  city,  and  there,  indeed,  the 
cathedral  was  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  square,  just 
a  little  unfinished.  Emelyan  began  to  put  on  the  last 
touches,  wherever  necessary,  and  by  evening  he  had 
everything  done.  The  king  woke  up,  looked  out  of  the 
palace,  and,  behold,  there  was  the  cathedral,  and  Emelyan 
was  walking  to  and  fro,  driving  in  nails  here  and  there. 
The  king  was  not  at  all  pleased  with  the  cathedral :  he 
was  angry,  because  he  had  no  reason  to  put  him  to  death, 
and  could  not  take  his  wife  from  him.  The  king  again 
called  his  servants. 

"  Emelyan  has  done  this  task,  too,  and  I  have  no  cause 
to  kill  him.  This  task  was  not  big  enough  for  him.  You 
must  invent  something  more  cunning.  Think  out  some- 
thing, or  else  I  will  have  you  put  to  death  before  him." 

The  servants  thought  out  to  have  Emelyan  construct  a 
river  around  the  palace,  so  that  ships  might  sail  on  it. 
The  king  called  Emelyan,  and  commanded  him  to  do  a 
new  task. 

"  If  you  were  able  to  build  a  cathedral  in  one  night," 
he  said,  "  you  are  also  able  to  do  this  work :  everything 
is  to  be  ready  by  to-morrow  as  I  command.  If  it  is  not 
ready,  I  shall  have  your  head  cut  off." 

Emelyan  was  grieved  more  than  ever,  and  came  home 
gloomy  to  his  wife. 

"  Why  are  you  so  sad  ?  Has  the  king  commanded  you 
to  do  something  new  ? " 

Emelyan  told  her. 


504  LABOURER  EMELY^N 

"  We  must  run  away." 

But  his  wife  said : 

"  You  cannot  run  away  from  the  soldiers,  —  they  will 
catch  you  anywhere.     You  must  obey." 

"  But  how  can  I  obey  ? " 

"  Come  now,  come  now,  husband,  do  not  worry  !  Eat 
your  supper,  and  lie  down  to  sleep.  Get  up  as  early  as 
possible,  and  all  will  be  in  good  time." 

Emelyan  lay  down  to  sleep.  His  wife  woke  him  up  in 
the  morning. 

"Go  to  the  castle,"  she  said.  ** Everything  is  ready. 
Near  the  harbour,  opposite  the  palace,  a  little  mound  is 
left :  so  take  a  spade  and  even  it  up." 

Emelyan  went.  When  he  came  to  the  city  he  saw  a 
river  round  about  the  palace,  and  the  ships  were  saihng 
upon  it.  Emelyan  went  up  to  the  harbour,  opposite  the 
palace,  and  he  saw  an  uneven  place,  and  evened  it  up. 

The  king  awoke,  and  he  saw  a  river  where  there  had 
been  none  before ;  ships  were  sailing  on  the  river,  and 
Emelyan  was  evening  up  a  mound  with  a  spade.  The 
king  was  frightened  and  not  at  all  glad  of  the  river  and 
the  ships,  but  annoyed,  because  he  could  not  put  Emelyan 
to  death.  He  thought  to  himself:  "There  is  no  task 
which  he  cannot  do.  What  shall  I  do  ? "  He  called  up 
his  servants  and  took  counsel  with  them. 

"  Think  out  a  task,"  he  said,  "  which  wiU  be  beyond 
Emelyan ;  for  so  far,  no  matter  what  we  have  given  him 
to  do,  he  has  done,  and  I  am  not  able  to  get  his  wife  from 
him." 

The  courtiers  thought  and  thought,  and  finally  thought 
out  something.     They  came  to  the  king  and  said : 

"  Emelydn  ought  to  be  called  and  told  this :  *  Go  there, 
know  not  where,  and  bring  that,  know  not  what !  *  He 
will  not  be  able  to  get  away  this  time,  for  wherever  he 
may  go,  you  will  say  that  he  did  not  go  where  it  was 
necessary,  and  no  matter  what  he  may  bring,  you  will  say 


LABOURER   EMELYAN  605 

that  he  did  not  bring  the  right  thing.  Then  you  can  put 
him  to  death  and  take  his  wife." 

The  king  was  happy. 

"  This  is  a  clever  thought  of  yours,"  he  said. 

The  king  sent  for  Emelyan,  and  said  to  him : 

"Go  there,  know  not  where,  bring  that,  know  not 
what.  If  you  do  not  bring  it,  I  shall  have  your  head 
cut  off." 

Emelyan  came  to  his  wife,  and  told  her  what  the  king 
had  said  to  him.     The  wife  thought  awhile. 

"  Well,"  she  said,  "  they  have  instructed  the  king 
cleverly.     Now  we  must  do  it  well." 

His  wife  sat  awhile  thinking,  and  then  she  said  to  her 
husband : 

"  You  will  have  to  go  a  long  distance,  —  to  our  grand- 
mother, the  ancient  peasant,  soldier  mother,  —  and  you 
must  ask  her  favour.  If  you  get  anything  from  her,  go 
straight  to  the  palace,  and  I  will  be  there.  Now  I  cannot 
get  out  of  their  hands.  They  will  take  me  by  force,  but 
it  will  not  be  for  long.  If  you  do  everything  as  the 
grandmother  tells  you  to,  you  will  redeem  me  soon." 

The  wife  got  her  husband  ready,  and  gave  him  a  wallet 
and  a  spindle. 

"  Give  this  to  her,"  she  said.  "  By  this  will  she  tell 
that  you  are  my  husband." 

She  showed  him  the  road.  Emelyan  went  away. 
When  he  came  outside  the  city,  he  saw  them  teaching 
the  soldiers.  He  stood  still  for  awhile,  watching  them. 
After  the  soldiers  had  practised,  they  sat  down  to  rest 
themselves.     Emelyan  went  up  to  them,  and  asked : 

"  Brothers,  can  you  tell  me  how  to  go  there,  know  not 
where,  and  how  to  bring  that,  know  not  what  ? " 

When  the  soldiers  heard  this,  they  marvelled. 

"  Who  sent  you  to  find  that  ? "  they  asked. 

«  The  king,"  he  said. 

"  We  ourselves,"  they  said,  "  ever  since  we  have  been 


506  LABOURER  EMELyIn 

made  soldiers,  have  been  going  there,  know  not  where, 
and  cannot  get  there,  and  have  been  seeking  that,  know 
not  what,  and  cannot  find  it.     We  cannot  help  you.". 

Emelyan  sat  awhile  with  the  soldiers,  and  went  on. 
He  walked  and  walked,  and  came  to  a  forest.  In  the 
forest  there  was  a  hut.  In  the  hut  sat  an  old  woman,  — 
the  peasant,  soldier  mother,  —  spinning  at  the  wheel 
She  was  weeping  and  did  not  moisten  her  fingers  with 
her  spittle  in  her  mouth,  but  with  the  tears  in  her  eyes. 
When  the  old  woman  saw  Emelydn,  she  called  out  to 
him: 

"  What  did  you  come  here  for  ? " 

Emelydn  gave  her  the  spindle,  and  said  that  his  wife 
had  sent  him  to  her.  The  old  woman  softened  at  once, 
and  began  to  put  questions  to  him.  And  Emelyan  told 
her  all  about  his  life,  how  he  had  married  the  maiden ; 
how  he  had  gone  to  the  city  to  live  ;  how  he  had  been 
made  a  janitor ;  how  he  had  served  in  the  palace ;  how 
he  had  built  the  cathedral  and  had  made  a  river  with  its 
ships,  and  how  the  king  had  commanded  him  to  go  there, 
know  not  where,  and  bring  that,  know  not  what. 

The  old  woman  listened  to  him  and  stopped  weeping. 
She  began  to  mumble  to  herself  : 

"  The  time  has  evidently  come.  Very  well,"  she  said, 
"  sit  down,  my  son,  and  have  something  to  eat." 

Emelyan  had  something  to  eat,  and  the  old  woman 
said  to  him : 

"  Here  you  have  a  ball  of  twine  :  roll  it  before  you,  and 
follow  it,  wherever  it  rolls.  It  will  roll  far  away,  to  the 
very  sea.  You  will  come  to  the  sea,  and  there  you  will 
see  a  large  city.  Go  into  the  city,  and  ask  them  in  the 
outer  house  to  let  you  stay  there  overnight.  Then  look 
for  what  you  need  !  " 

"  How  shall  I  know  it,  grandmother  ?  ** 

"  When  you  see  that  which  people  obey  better  than 
their  parents,  you  have  found  it.     Grasp  it  and  take  it  to 


LABOURER   EMELYAN  507 

the  king !  When  you  bring  it  to  the  king,  he  will  say 
to  you  that  you  have  not  brought  the  right  thing; 
say  then,  *  If  it  is  not  that  I  shall  have  to  break  it,'  and 
strike  the  thing  and  then  take  it  to  the  river,  break  it  to 
pieces,  and  throw  it  into  the  water ;  then  you  will  get 
your  wife  back,  and  you  will  dry  up  my  tears." 

Emelyan  bade  the  old  woman  good-bye,  and  went 
away,  rolling  the  ball  before  him.  He  rolled  it  and 
rolled  it,  and  it  brought  him  to  the  sea.  Near  the  sea 
was  a  large  city.  At  the  edge  of  it  stood  a  large  house. 
Emelyan  asked  the  people  in  the  house  to  let  him  stay  in 
it  overnight,  and  they  let  him.  He  lay  down  to  sleep. 
He  woke  up  early  in  the  morning,  and  heard  the  father 
getting  up  and  waking  his  son,  to  send  him  to  cut  some 
wood.     And  the  son  did  not  obey  him : 

"  It  is  early  yet :  I  shall  have  time  enough  to  do  it." 

He  heard  the  mother  say  on  the  oven: 

"Go,  my  son,  your  father's  bones  are  aching,  —  how 
can  he  go  himself  ?     It  is  time." 

The  son  only  smacked  his  lips,  and  fell  asleep  again. 
The  moment  he  fell  asleep,  there  was  a  thundering  and 
rattling  in  the  street.  The  son  jumped  up,  dressed  him- 
self, and  ran  out  into  the  street.  Emelyan,  too,  jumped 
up  and  ran  after  him,  to  see  what  it  was  that  the  son 
paid  more  attention  to  than  to  his  father  and  his  mother. 
Emelyan  ran  out,  and  saw  a  man  walking  in  the  street, 
carrying  a  round  thing  over  his  belly,  and  striking  it 
with  sticks,  and  it  was  this  that  thundered  so  and  made 
the  son  pay  attention  to  it.  Emelyan  ran  up  to  take  a 
look  at  the  thing.  He  saw  that  it  was  as  round  as  a  vat, 
and  skins  were  stretched  over  both  sides  of  it.  He  asked 
the  people  what  they  called  this  thing. 

"  A  drum,"  they  said. 

"  Is  it  empty  ? " 

"  Yes,"  they  said. 

Emelyan  wondered  at  the  thing,  and  began  to  ask  the 


508  LABOURER   EMELYAN 

man  to  give  it  to  him.  The  man  would  not  give  it  to 
him.  Emelyan  stopped  asking  for  it,  but  followed 
the  drummer.  He  walked  the  whole  day,  and  when  the 
drummer  lay  down  to  sleep,  Emelyan  seized  the  drum, 
and  ran  away  with  it.  He  ran  and  ran  and  came  home 
to  his  city.  He  went  to  see  his  wife,  but  she  was  not  at 
home.  She  had  been  taken  to  the  king  the  next  day. 
Emelyan  went  to  the  palace,  and  had  himself  announced. 

"  The  man  has  come,"  he  said,  "  who  went  there,  know 
not  where,  and  has  brought  that,  know  not  what." 

He  was  announced  to  the  king.  The  king  sent  word 
to  Emelyan  to  come  the  next  day.  Emelyan  asked  to  be 
announced  once  more : 

"  I  have  come  this  day,  and  have  brought  what  the 
king  has  commanded.  Let  the  king  come  to  me,  or  else 
will  I  go  in  myself." 

The  king  came  out. 

"  Where  have  you  been  ?  "  he  asked. 

He  told  him  where. 

"  It  is  not  there,"  he  said.  "  And  what  did  you 
bring?" 

Emelydn  wanted  to  show  it  to  him,  but  the  king  did 
not  look  at  it. 

"  It  is  not  that,"  he  said. 

"  If  it  is  not  that,"  he  said,  "  I  must  break  it,  and  the 
devil  take  it ! " 

Emelydn  went  out  of  the  palace  with  the  drum,  and 
struck  it.  The  moment  he  struck  it,  the  whole  army  of 
the  king  gathered  about  Emelydn.  They  did  not  obey  the 
king,  but  followed  after  Emelydn.  When  the  king  saw 
this,  he  ordered  Emelydn's  wife  brought  out  to  Emelydn, 
and  began  to  ask  him  to  give  him  the  drum. 

"  I  cannot,"  said  Emelydn.  "  I  have  been  commanded 
to  break  it  to  pieces,  and  to  throw  the  pieces  into  the 
river." 

Emelydn  went  with  the  drum  to  the  river,  and  the 


LABOURER  EMELY^N  509 

soldiers  came  after  him.  At  the  river,  Emely^n  broke 
the  drum  and  smashed  it  to  splinters,  and  threw  them 
into  the  river.  And  all  the  soldiers  ran  away.  But 
Emelyan  took  his  wife  and  went  home  with  her.  After 
that  the  king  stopped  harassing  him,  and  he  began  to 
live  happily,  gaining  what  was  good,  and  losing  what  was 
evil. 


THE  END. 


^^*^ 


.f  -pr 


.-   Tft  D^ 


'r^^ 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below, 
or  on  the  date  to  which  renewed.  Renewals  only: 

Tel.  No.  642-3405 
Renewals  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  date  due. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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LD21A-50m-2,'71 
(P200l8l0)476— A-32 


{    ,. 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


^^% 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


%•: 


-.m 


U'^-^7^ 


